Silence in Catullus

1. Natural and Sociocultural Silence in C. 6

19 Natural and Sociocultural Silence in C. 6 . . . nothing is able to keep these things quiet. 6.12: nam nil ista ualet nihil tacere I n this chapter I aim to give a first impression of what we stand to gain by reading poems for their silences. In particular I wish to illustrate the basic difference, discussed in the introduction, between natural and sociocultural silences: between what cannot be said, or what goes unsaid in fact, and what may not or should not be said but—for otherwise there is no purpose to a prohibition against speaking—could be, can be spoken. My main example is c. 6, (“Flavius, about your girlfriend to Catullus”; Flaui, delicias tuas Catullo). Taken as a first example of Catullus’s poetry, c. 6 presents certain complications. It has seemed to some readers shocking, vulgar, or obscene in subject matter and diction.1 Catullus asks about the details of a friend’s morning-after bedroom; since the friend does not open up, Catullus happily infers. In his own poetic speech he does not mince words. C. 6’s main complication would seem to be, then, that it violates propriety or decorum. Whether this is indeed a difficulty is perhaps a matter of taste: can one admire “the silk purse” or see only “the sow’s ear”?2 For just this reason, however, c. 6 is important for our purposes. The poem concerns itself with the difference between what is said and what is kept silent. We will see how c. 6 is founded on an interest in just such modalities of speech: is or is not, may or may not, can, cannot, must not. From this perspective any shock to c. 6’s topic and language is 1 20 Natural and Sociocultural Silence in C. 6 precisely in how, on a sequential reading of the corpus, it says outright what earlier poems have kept relatively silent: sexual details are spoken aloud in so many words. A particular point of contrast in this connection is with the bracketing cc. 5 (“Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love”; Viuamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus) and 7 (“You ask how many of your giant kisses”; Quaeris quot mihi basiationes). Both have been dearly loved by readers of Catullus for, we may say, their rather less overtly sexual images of erotic passion. In their context, and in their terms, c. 6 can indeed seem coarse.3 But to read c. 6 mainly in terms of those poems, as an unacceptable violation of linguistic taboo, is I think to misread it.4 As we will see, Catullus delights in the poetic possibilities of just such self-consciously outrageous violation. I therefore seek to read c. 6 in its own terms, as they constitute the poem’s self-conception and help to constitute as well Catullus’s poetics. To that end I also discuss certain ironies and evaluative terms given programmatic status in the corpus by the libellus’s dedication, c. 1 (“To whom do I give this charming new booklet?”; Cui dono lepidum nouum libellum). With attention paid to its interest in modalities of speech and silence, as well other sense perceptions, c. 6 may thus be read as a powerful and artful examination of silence, whether natural or sociocultural. Sounds Deferred, Desired, and Absent: Silence in C. 6 Questions of taste or decorum notwithstanding, we might best begin, then, with a logically prior question: Is there really silence—of any kind: natural or sociocultural—in a poem, especially one from so speechy a poet, one purporting to represent his speech directly? At first glance, c. 6 seems to be full of sounds indeed. These are of different types, but special attention would seem to be paid to vocal sound. From beginning to end there is ordinary speech, shouting, ordinary speech again, and a summons to the heavens. What does it mean to overhear these and likewise to experience the poem’s other sense-perceptual actions? Through them, may we overhear silence in a meaningful way? Flavius, about your girlfriend to Catullus, if she weren’t uncharming and inelegant, Natural and Sociocultural Silence in C. 6 21 you would tell and wouldn’t be able to keep quiet. But it’s some feverish, skinny little whore you cherish: that’s shameful to admit. 5 For you’re not lying alone at night: silent in vain since the...