Daisy Dunn - Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet

CONTENTS

They say that pines were born long ago

From the head of Mount Pelion in Thessaly

And swam the sea, its undulating waves

To Phasis, pheasant river, and

The land of Aeetes the king

As young men, plucked from the

Flower of Greek youth in a mission

To steal the golden fleece

Of Colchis

Dared to skim with speeding stern

The salt sea,

Sweeping turquoise waters

With oars upturned like hands.

Divine Minerva, her keep a citadel

In the citys heights

Streamlined the flying chariot to the breeze

Herself, weaving, joining the pines together

To form a curving keel.

She, the ship, inured the innocent sea

To the flight of ships.

No sooner had she torn the capricious membrane

With her beak and with a twist of the oar

Turned the waters white with foam

Than from the whitening whirlpool there emerged

The unpainted faces

Of nymphs glistening in brine and gazing

In wonder at so novel a contraption.

On that day and no other men

Watched keen-eyed they were human

The naked bodies of nymphs

Rise until their breasts were free of the eddying white.

Then Peleus is said to have burned in love for Thetis.

Then nymph Thetis did not disparage a wedding to a mortal.

Then father Jupiter himself felt that Peleus ought

To be joined to Thetis in matrimony.

Heroes, born in the moment most admired

Beyond measure of all Ages, godly race,

Offspring of a noble mother,

Again and again I beseech you.

I shall commemorate you often in my poem,

Especially you Peleus, stalwart of Thessaly,

Raised to the stars by so prosperous a match. For Jupiter,

Jupiter, father of the gods, gave up his love to you.

Did nymph Thetis bewitch you with her beauty?

Did Tethys truly allow you to wed her grand-daughter

And Ocean, too, her husband

Who envelops the whole world in sea?

Dawn came in a moment many times imagined and

All Thessaly flocked to her home as one.

The palace was filled

With the jubilant crowd who held gifts before their faces

And faces expressing joy.

Cieros was deserted, Phthian Tempe left behind,

The houses of Crannon, the walls of Larisa, empty;

They convened at Pharsalus, to Pharsalus and its homes

They flocked. No one tended the fields. The necks

Of bullocks grew soft through inactivity,

No curved scythe cleansed the soil beneath the vine,

No bull stooped beneath the yoke to cleave the earth,

No hook pruned the shade from the leaves of the trees,

Decay and rust overran the abandoned ploughshares.

But the house receded every which way

In regal opulence, and sparkled and glimmered

With gold and silver.

Ivory glinted off thrones, cups dazzled off tables,

The whole household delighted in the lustre of

Royal treasure.

Observe the couch at the heart of the palace,

A fine seat for a goddess,

Finished with ivory from India

And spread with purple tinged with the rose-pink

Dye of the murex fish.

This bedspread,

Embroidered with the shapes of men

Who lived long ago, unveils the virtues of heroes

Through the miracle of art.

Looking out from it

On the quietly shifting shore of Naxos

Ariadne watches Theseus

Fading with fast fleet and bears at heart

Fears she cannot temper.

Not yet does she believe she is seeing

What she is seeing,

Barely woken from sleep that deceived

To discover she is abandoned

And pitiful and alone on lonely sands.

But the young man is forgetful and fleeing

And pushes the waves away with oars,

Leaving his promises unfulfilled to the tempest that is stirring.

From afar atop the seaweed, with sad little eyes,

The daughter of Minos watches, ah she watches,

Him, like a stone sculpture of a bacchant.

She ebbs on currents swollen with pain,

Losing hold

On the fine band on her fair head

And the cloth that envelops her body in a gentle clinch

And the rounded bra that bounds her milky breasts.

All the coverings which have fallen from her body everywhere

The salt waves make sport of at her feet.

But neither headband nor fluttering veils vexed her

When in the fullness of her heart

She was missing you, Theseus,

With her every thought, in the fullness of her heart

Clinging to you, completely lost.

Poor girl, how Venus felled her with never-ending grief,

Sowing thorny worries in her heart

From the moment Theseus determined

A departure from the port of Piraeus on Athens arced shore

And reached the palace of the unjust king of Crete.

For they say that Athens, plagued by damnation

To pay the penalty for the murder of Androgeos,

Would at one time provide its pick of youths

And glory of maidens as a feast for the Minotaur.

The fledgling city was suffering the consequences

When Theseus chose to yield his own body

For precious Athens so the living dead of Cecrops

Should not be carried to such deaths in Crete.

And so he put his trust in a light ship and gentle breeze

And came before haughty Minos

And his magnificent enclosure.

The moment the virgin princess clapped her

Widening eyes upon him

Her pure little bed was still protecting her in a soft

And motherly embrace, breathing sweetly

Over her the fragrant breath

Of myrtle such as the River Eurotas puts forth

Or the breeze spring plucks from flowers of many colours

And averted her hot eyes from him only when

Her whole body had caught the flame of love

And she burned deep inside to the depths of her marrow.

Wretchedly rousing passions in his cruel heart,

Divine Cupid, weaver of joys with worries among men,

And Venus, ruler of the Golgians and leafy Idalium.

On what waves you inflamed the girl, threw her

From her wits, as she sighed for her fair guest

With breath upon breath.

How huge the fears she carried in her wearied heart.

How many times she paled beyond gleaming gold,

When putting his mind to conquering the savage monster

Theseus sought either death or the fruits of glory.

Promising little gifts to the gods that were not unwelcome

But futile nonetheless, she mouthed vows silently.

Like an oak tree or cone-bearing pine with seeping bark

Shaking its branches on the heights of Mount Taurus

Whose twisting trunk a storm uproots in a flash

And the tree, torn from the roots,

Falls prostrate and far

Breaking whatever lies in its broad path

So Theseus laid the beast low, conquering its force

While it tossed its horns ineffectually to the empty breeze.

From there and high on glory the stranger retraced his path,

Steering his wandering course with the delicate thread

So the deception of the enclosure should not defeat him

As he departed from meandering turns of the labyrinth.

But come, I digress from my primary song,

Recollecting further how the girl departed

From the face of her father, the embrace of her sister,

And finally her mother, who tried wretchedly

To feel happy for her lost daughter, who put above

Them all her sweet love for Theseus;