While studying Archaeology at The University of Birmingham, I developed a love for ancient poetry. It had always been there, when I was in secondary school I discovered The Iliad, but University allowed that love to grow…Ovid, Martial…the Greeks Sappho, Euripides, Aristophanes et al.
This post is about one of my Favourites Catullus and depending on how you all like it it might be the first in a series.
Gaius Valerius Catullus ( c 84 – c 54 BC ) was a poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote in the Neoteric style which is a style of poetry more concerned with everyday life than with the exploit of Gods, Goddesses and Heroes. His poems have caused shock to many readers over the past two millennia due to His use of explicit sexual imagery, if You read His works You’ll quickly realise that He seemed pretty obsessed with sex, semen and genitalia ( though to be fair who isn’t ). His greatest poem is said to be Catullus 64 written about the marriage of Thetis and Peleus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_64.
This post isn’t about that poem though…this blog is about a poem so Rude so dirty that a full English translation wasn’t published until the late 20th century! that’s right the late 20th century…the poems title is Carmen 16 ( it’s also known by the title of this post)
The Poem is directed at two men:- Marcus Furius Bibaculus and Marcus Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus, who it seems are the subject to several of Catullus’s poems, who find Catullus’s verses delicate and seem to imply that He was an effeminate poet.
Below is a translation of the poem which is definitely NSFW and includes sexually violent language :-
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,
bottom* Aurelius and catamite* Furius,
you who think, because my poems
are sensitive, that I have no shame.
For it’s proper for a devoted poet to be moral
himself, [but] in no way is it necessary for his poems.
In point of fact, these have wit and charm,
if they are sensitive and a little shameless,
and can arouse an itch,
and I don’t mean in boys, but in those hairy old men
who can’t get it up.
Because you’ve read my countless kisses,
you think less of me as a man?
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you.
* Men in ancient Rome were free to have sex with other men, with no perceived loss of masculinity if they took a dominant or penetrative role, describing Aurelius as a bottom questions His masulinity.
* A Catamite is a boy kept for Homosexual practises.
My Favourite translationof the first two lines are :-
” I will fuck you in the ass and in the mouth, respectively; Aurelius, You sodomised ass pony and Furius you cock sucking pervert”
Often, the first two lines and the final line were left out of English translations, or the original Latin was left in with the English starting at line three. Even translations during the 20th century were more liberal with Their translations. A translation by F.A.Wright began “I’ll show you I’m a man” while Jack Lindsay’s translation begins “Aurelius down, you’ll knuckle under / Furius up! admit Your blunder!”
But why is this particular poem considered so filthy?…Romans loved filth and obscenity, so by the standards of Catullus’s day and you could argue Our day it wasn’t/ isn’t all that bad and wouldn’t have been nearly as shocking to them as to later audiences.
The implication is that it’s not the writer, but the readers, who make the poem so vulgar.
I hope you enjoyed this post, if you did let me know in the comments below and I might do a post on Ovids Amores or Catullus’s Lesbisa or the work of Sappho.
The working end 