Inbuit iussitque mundum nosse nascendi vias. Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet. Ipsa Troianos nepotes in Latinos transtulit, 70 Ipsa Laurentem puellam coniugem nato dedit, Vnde Ramnes et Quirites proque prole posterum Romuli matrem crearet et nepotem Caesarem; Moxque Marti de sacello dat pudicam virginem, Romuleas ipsa fecit cum Sabinis nuptias. 75 Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet. Rura fecundat voluptas, rura Venerem sentiunt; So Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet. Ecce iam subter genistas explicant tauri latus, Subter umbras cum maritis ecce balantum greges Iam loquaces ore rauco stagna cycni perstrepunt. 85 Et neges queri sororem de marito barbaro. Illa cantat, nos tacemus. Quando ver venit meum? amet. 90 NOTES. I. 2. arida. The MSS. have arido, but Servius on Verg. Aen. 12. 587 says ' in pumice' autem iste masculino genere posuit, et hunc sequimur. nam et Plautus ita dixit: licet Catullus dixerit feminino. The authority of Servius is greater than that of our indifferent MSS., in which the masculine was substituted as the usual gender. 5. This line appears in the MSS. as iam tamen cum ausus est unus Italorum which was corrected by the early Italian scholars into iam tum cum ausus es, &c., the accepted reading, 'you used to think my trifles not worthless even at that time now long past when you essayed to write a universal history.' Iam tum seems to me awkward, and the elision of the monosyllable is not euphonious. Therefore I have ventured to put a full stop at nugas, and sticking close to the MSS. to read iam tandem ausus es. We thus get a double reason why Catullus should dedicate his poems to Nepos : (1) because he used to think something of them; (2) because now at last Nepos, having appeared as writer of a universal history, deserves a writer's tribute of a dedication. Tandem will mean 'after much study' like denique 95. I, Zmyrna mer Cinnae nonam post denique messem. Iam M tandem are often joined as Verg. Aen. 6. 61 ; 10. 890; 12. 497, iam tandem invadit medios (where P has tamen for tandem); Liv. 22. 12 § 10; Cic. de Leg. Agr. 2 § 103. 9. patrona virgo is the Muse, the guardian of poets. The description of the Muse has been considered too vague, and several improbable conjectures have been offered: but cp. 68. 41, non possum reticere, deae, qua me Allius in re iuverit: where deae is the Muses. So Statius, Theb. 1. 5, unde iubetis ire deae ? II. 8. I have printed Postgate's reading of this line; which stands corruptly in V credo ut cum grauis acquiescet ardor. (See Journal of Philology, 17. 228.) 9-13. It is usual to print marks of a lacuna after line 10: but in the absence of MSS. testimony, I cannot believe in a lacuna, that refuge of distracted critics, neither in the vast one vouched for by Guarinus, nor in the long one of Perreius. By accepting the simple alteration of posse for possem, made by Is. Voss, all is made intelligible: 'to be able to play with you as she does is as pleasing to me as was her golden apple to Atalanta.' Posse may easily have been written by mistake for posse. III. 10.pipiabat is the correction of Voss for piplabat V. 16. So Ellis: his emendation seems best to account for the corrupt reading of the MSS. bonum factum male bonus ille passer. The early Italian scholars read o factum male! o miselle passer ! From this Lachmann, who is followed by Schwabe and Schmidt elicited o factum male! io miselle passer! |