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The
Brownstone Journal >>
Issues >> Vol.
XII Spring 2005
Hadvantageous Word Choice: A Commentary
of Catullus 84
Cynthia Swanson (CAS 06) is studying
Ancient Greek & Latin, Classical Civilization, and English.
She hopes to become a translator and teacher of Latin.
Catullus’ Carmen 84 is a piece of invective
poetry written in elegiac couplets and aimed at Arrius, a man
who over-aspirates his words in a most unstylish way. Citing
three words Arrius mispronounces, chommoda for commoda, hinsidias
for insidias, and Hionian for Ionian, Catullus pokes fun at
Arrius’ attempt to sound cultured. Yet Arrius’ fault lies not
only in his over-aspiration of these words but also in the gusto
and pride with which he pronounces them. Catullus further mocks
Arrius by claiming his mother and her entire family (brother,
mother, and father) spoke this way as well. After Arrius is
sent to Syria, Catullus’ ears along with everyone else’s seem
pleased and relieved that no longer will they have to hear words
slaughtered so horribly. Yet this hope is destroyed when news
comes back that Arrius over-aspirates the places he now visits,
including the Ionian Sea. Dettmer calls C.84 an "attack
on individuals with literary or social ambitions" (203),
which implies that Catullus uses Arrius as an example, not an
exception. Dated most likely at 55 B.C. or later (Wiseman 47),
C.84 seems not only to be a piece of invective poetry against
Arrius specifically but also to be Catullus’ own commentary
on the growing practice of aspirating in the Latin language.
Because the practice of aspirating words was
becoming fashionable around the time Catullus was writing, it
was naturally a topic of debate among the literary men of the
day. Gellius quotes the grammarian Nigidius Figulus as saying,
rusticus fit sermo si aspires perperam, "boorish is the
speech, if you aspire wrongly" (Fordyce 373). Caesar also
included a section de verborum apirationibus in his work on
Analogy (Fordyce 373). The practice of aspirating occupied such
a place in literary criticism because of its difficult origins
and practice. From the parent Indo-Germanic language, aspirated
consonants were kept in Greek but lost in primitive Latin (Fordyce
374). Although Latin always used aspiration in borrowed Greek
words, the aspirated consonant was also showing up in Latin
words such as triumphus, Gracchus, and pulcher in the late Republic,
but since there was no fixed rule for these additions, an uneducated
man could easily be confused (Fordyce 374). Originally, an initial
aspirate ‘h’ evolved in Latin from the Indo-European guttural
‘gh’ (represented in Greek by c), this aspirate was highly irregular
and mostly fell out of popular speech (Fordyce 374). Therefore,
using the ‘h’ correctly became "a mark of culture"
(Ramage 44). A man who dropped these initial aspirates which
the educated, upper echelon pronounced would gain a bad reputation,
but on the other hand, a self-conscious social climber could
overdo aspirates and make himself look even worse, like Arrius
(Fordyce 374). Clearly at the time Catullus wrote, aspirations
were a tricky business, but because of this were also an important
social distinction.
Unlike many of the characters that appear in
Catullus’ poetry whose identities are undisputable, Arrius’
identity remains somewhat of a mystery. Cicero mentions several
Arrii in his writing who could possibly be the target of Catullus’
invective poetry. E.S. Ramage believes the Arrius about whom
Catullus writes is a C. Arrius whom Cicero mentions in several
letters to Atticus (II.14-15) written in April 59 B.C. (45).
Cicero divulges to Atticus that he does not want to spend time
with C. Arrius or his friend Sebosus because "all Arrius
wants to do is to sit around and philosophize" (Ramage
45). This showy display of knowledge, which is so distasteful
to Cicero, seems similar to the behavior Catullus addresses
in C.84 (Ramage 45). Speaking with too many aspirates shows
Arrius’ obvious attempt to be fashionable, but doing so incorrectly
reveals him to be of the "pseudosophisticated and pseudointellectual
set" (Ramage 45). In a second letter of Cicero to Atticus
(II.15), Cicero also says that he would rather be associated
with rural people, cum rusticis, than with overly-urbane C.
Arrius and Sebosus, whom Cicero calls cum his perurbanis (Ramage
45). Cicero’s use of perurbanis shows that C. Arrius is just
trying too hard, a shortcoming that Catullus’ Arrius also suffers
(Ramage 45). Quinn calls this C. Arrius "Cicero’s boring
neighbor," dismissing him as a less likely candidate than
Quintus Arrius (Quinn 419). In fact, more scholars tend to believe
that Catullus’ Arrius is not C. Arrius but instead Q. Arrius,
an orator and client of Crassus, mentioned in Cicero’s Brutus
242 (Baker and Marshall Commoda 49). Cicero says, Quod idem
faciebat Q. Arrius, qui fuit M. Crassi quasi secundarum (Cicero
Brutus 208), which tells us that Arrius played "second
fiddle to Marcus Crassus," as G.L. Hendrickson translates
quasi secundarum (Cicero Brutus 209). Q. Arrius was a supporter
of Crassus and active in Caesar’s consular campaign in 60 B.C.
(Baker and Marshall Commoda 50). He also possibly accompanied
Crassus to Syria in 55 B.C. (Quinn 419). Other scholars have
projected about Arrius’ possible lineage based on what his over-aspirations
reveal. A.J. Bell suggests that this type of mispronunciation
would be more common for a foreigner speaking Latin than a Roman.
More specifically, this particular pronunciation could be a
carry over from the Etruscan language (Bell 138). Evidence that
Arrius might be of Etruscan descent comes from Catullus’ mention
of Arrius’ maternal family—the Etruscans cared more about maternal
lineage than Romans (Bell 138). Yet Harrison argues that Arrius
is actually Venetic because Venetic "aspirates here, there,
and everywhere," which would give Venetic speakers major
problems in speaking Latin (199). Scholars have yet to come
to any kind of consensus as to Arrius or his lineage, although
many favor Q. Arrius as the most likely subject of C.84.
While C.84 seems rather lighthearted in terms
of its subject matter, its structure, particularly in regards
to sound and word placement, is more intricate than it immediately
appears. On the most basic level of construction, the first
and last words of the poem are mispronounced (Quinn 419). Also
line 2, insidias Arrius hinsidias, creates a word picture that
illustrates Arrius trapped in his own way of speaking (Dettmer
202). By being lost to his own faults in this way, Arrius is
just as "self-deluded" as many of Catullus’ targets
in other poems (Dettmer 202). Also Catullus manipulates the
letters ‘h’ and ‘s’ as well as elision and word placement to
reinforce the point of his poem (Vandiver 337). Arrius’ over-aspirations
cause him to release more air than necessary, and thus, hiss.
This hissing is captured by the excess of ‘s’in the poem, which
is used 40 times in twelve lines. Similarly, the sound of a
Greek c, most likely pronounced as an ‘s’, appears twice in
hinsidias and Hionios (Vandiver 338). Thus, a particularly strong
‘s’ sound can be heard in line 2, dicere et insidias Arrius
hinsidias, and line 7, hoc misso in Syriam requierant omnibus
aures. Even more conspicuous, six of the poem’s twelve lines
end in ‘s’, including the first and last two pentameters and
middle two hexameters (Vandiver 338). More precisely yet, these
four pentameters end in words beginning in ‘h’ and ending in
‘s’, and three of these words are pronounced with the incorrect
aspiration (Vandiver 338-9). Only three words in C.84 are correctly
aspirated: hoc (line 7), haec (line 8), and horribilis (line
10). All three of these are placed critically according to the
meter—hoc beginning the line, haec the center of the pentameter,
and horribilis ending the line (Vandiver 340). Catullus’ criticism
of Arrius’ poor speech is intensified by this superbly deliberate
construction.
Like most texts from the ancient world, the
manuscripts of C.84 have not come to the present day without
flaws and problems. The largest problem is that chommoda, hinsidias,
and Hionian all appear in the manuscript as commoda, insidias,
and Ionian, respectively (Mynors 93-4). Luckily for Catullus
and his scholars, though, Quintilian refers to C.84 when talking
about errors of aspiration. In i.5.20 he says, Erupit brevi
tempore nimius usus . . . qua de re Catulli nobile epigramma
est, translated by Butler as "Then for a little while there
was an outbreak of aspirating too much . . . and there is a
well-known epigram of Catullus about this" ( Quintilian
132-3). Here, Quintilian gives away Catullus’ joke. From this,
scholars have been able to correct the problematic manuscripts.
Scholars have also widely debated the presence of liber in line
5, but there has yet to be a widely accepted emendation to the
problematic text (see note on liber for more detail). There
are other minor variations in the manuscript but these do not
affect the reading of the poem greatly, instead acting more
like modern-age ‘typos’.
For my own translation of C.84, I’ve tried
to communicate to the modern reader the embarrassing way in
which the speech of Arrius, a public speaker, is represented.
For similar effect, I selected a modern politician widely known
for frequent mispronunciations and made-up words. George W.
Bush is a particularly good modern Arrius because his idiosyncratic
pronunciation of ‘nukular’ is common to his father in the same
way Arrius’ over-aspiration was common to his mother.
In order to transport the poem to a present
day setting, it was necessary to relocate from the Ionian Sea.
I chose Iraq for the sake of its initial letter as well as the
fact that it is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. In terms of
structure, I tried to retain the position of the comic words
(and thus the punch lines, as they are), although this was not
always possible due to differences between Latin and English
syntax. Of course, in translation the effects of sound, cadence
and rhythm are lost. As this is a comic poem, the loss is not
as devastating as it might have been for other works. Most importantly
though, I tried to communicate Catullus’ joke on a politican
who tries to employ impressive language but ends up looking
worse by using the wrong word. Even today this kind of unsophisticated
orator remains the butt of many jokes.
(1-2) Chommoda . . . hinsidias: Catullus chooses
chommoda and hinsidias in order to demonstrate Arrius’ embarrassingly
overzealous use of aspiration. Fordyce believes that if there
was any joke in these particular words it is lost to the modern
reader, yet others believe that chommoda and hinsidias help
to identify Arrius at the very least (375). Quinn calls Arrius’
words "common" but not the words of an everyman; these
words would have been common and frequent to an orator, though
(419). In fact, both occur frequently in Cicero (Quinn 419).
Using the language of oratory seems to provide more evidence
for Arrius’ being identified as Q. Arrius to Baker and Marshall.
Based on this assumption, Baker and Marshall read even further
into insidias and commoda. Q. Arrius gave political service
to Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, his patron, and expected to
receive a consulship in 58 B.C., but as political structures
shifted, Crassus was left more on the outside of the First Triumvirate,
and Arrius was slighted; thus, insidias, which can mean ‘maneuver’
as well as ‘ambush’, refers to Arrius’ maneuvers both towards
the other parties as well as within his own ("Commoda and
Insidiae: Catullus 84:1-4." 50). In the same context, commoda
must refer to the advantages Arrius himself expected to gain
("Commoda and Insidiae: Catullus 84:1-4." 50).
(1) dicebat: The use of imperfect here as well
as in sperabat in line 3 suggests that although Arrius was once
part of the scene, he is no longer around (Quinn 419).
si quando commoda vellet: Vellet is a subjunctive
in a frequentive clause, according to both Quinn (420), as well
as Thomson (512). Silver Age Latin used this construction normally,
but Republican Latin only used the construction occasionally
(Quinn 420). According to Thomson, Cicero uses the construction
twenty-five times, and Caesar uses it fourteen times (512-3).
Most of these examples follow cum rather than si, but a subjunctive
after a si can emphasize the "notion of contingency"
(Fordyce 375-6). Catullus also uses a frequentive clause following
ubi in 63.67, ubi esset orto mihi Sole cubiculum.
(2) Arrius: Note that Arrius falls just after
the caesura in the elegiac line, giving particular emphasis
to his name.
(3) mirifice: Although Thomson says mirifice
usually stands on its own as "wonderfully," as it
does in Cicero, he advocates a translation of "wonderfully
well" to express more clearly how Arrius thinks himself
to speak (513). Similarly, Forsyth suggests "in a wonderful
way" rather than the simple "wonderfully" (518).
sperabat: Rather than "hope for"
or "desire," here the meaning of "flatter himself"
better explains Arrius’ own pride about the way he speaks (Merrill
204, Fordyce 376, Thomson 513). Also the imperfect tense reemphasizes
the fact that Arrius is no longer present (Quinn 419).
(4) quantum poterat: Literally, "as much
as he had been able," the ambiguity of quantum poterat
seems to imply several things. Many scholars believe that the
phrase describes the way Arrius pronounces his words. Fordyce
claims that Arrius uses all the force of his lungs (376), while
Thomson suggests that he says them "as loudly as he could"
(513). More generally, Forsyth translates the phrase "as
emphatically as he could" (518). Yet to me, it seems worthwhile
to translate quantum poterat simply as "as much as he had
been able"—not only to imply the volume and force with
which Arrius speaks these words but also the frequency. Catullus’
main complaint with Arrius seems to be his frequent misuse of
aspiration, so why should quantum poterat not also imply that
Arrius’ pride caused him to speak these words whenever he got
the opportunity?
dixerat: Dixerat falls directly after the caesura,
giving it special emphasis. Furthermore, the tense also emphasizes
the fact that Arrius is no longer present (Quinn 419).
(5-6) mater . . . avunculus . . . maternus
avus . . . avia: All of the family members Catullus mentions
are from Arrius’ maternal family. It was current belief that
the female line preserved the "older and purer ways of
speaking" (Quinn 420). Both Plato in Cratylus and Cicero
in his De Oratore mention this idea (Fordyce 376). In De Oratore
3.45, Cicero says about his own mother-in-law Laelia, facilius
enim mulieres incorruptam antiquitatem conservant, quod multorum
sermonis expertes ea tenent semper quae prima didicerunt, translated
by H. Rackham as "since it is easier for women to keep
the older pronunciation unspoiled, as they do not converse with
a number of people and so always retain the accents heard first"
(Cicero De Oratore 36 - 7). Cicero also says in Brutus 211,
Legimus epistulas Corneliae matris Gracchorum; apparet filios
non tam in gremio educatos quam in sermone matris, which G.L.
Hendrickson translates as "we have read the letters of
Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi; they make it plain that her
sons were nursed not less by their mother’s speech than at her
breast" (Cicero Brutus 180-1). Clearly, Cicero himself
believes that mothers have a powerful impact on the way their
children speak. Furthermore, if the poem can truly be dated
to 55 B.C., then Catullus also could have read De Oratore, also
published about 55 B.C., and either parody or allude to the
passage here (Thomson 513). Catullus makes his joke on the notion
that Arrius speaks in this "eccentric" manner because
of a long heritage in speaking so ridiculously (Quinn 420).
(5) Credo: The use of credo, as Fordyce states,
is ironic, intending to poke fun at the idea that women preserve
the manner of speech in a family (376).
liber: Scholars do not agree whether liber
should be taken as an adjective, which would imply a "servile"
background for the head of the family, or as a proper name Liber
for his uncle, or whether it hints at his uncle’s over indulgence
in "the juice of Bacchus-Liber" (Forsyth 518). Baker
and Marshall propose that Liber as a proper name is correct
if Arrius is Q. Arrius, based on the fact alone that Q. Arrius
could not have even reached the praetorship, much less hope
for a consulship if any servility were in his family’s background
("Avunculus Liber" 292). Further, Baker and Marshall
believe that Bacchus/Liber could quite possibility be making
fun of Arrius’ uncle’s drinking habits because the family had
a well-known reputation as "party-givers" according
to Horace ("Avunculus Liber" 292). Also it is possible
that Q. Arrius’ banquet, given as part of his electoral campaign,
was in honor of his uncle (Baker and Marshall, "Avunculus
Liber" 292-3). This would make the political aspirations
of Arrius more tied to the presence of his uncle, and even his
uncle’s drinking habits, in the poem. Yet not all scholars agree
with this, even if the Arrius of C.84 is Q. Arrius. Fordyce
claims that none of the proposed proper names are probable (376).
Also if Arrius is indeed the Q. Arrius Cicero mentions, then
liber is likely to be an adjective (Merrill 204) as Cicero claims
him to be infirmo loco natus . . . sine doctrina, sine ingenio
(Thomson 512). According to Quinn, Arrius’ maternal uncle unlikely
would have passed for free-born, unless his sister was free
as well and his parents at least libertini; this improbability
is the point Catullus is trying to make (420). Dettmer equates
liber with libertinus, or the uncle’s freedman status, which
places him as yet another comic uncle among the elegiac poems
(Dettmer 202). Overall, I believe liber, implying "free,"
fits the poem best because Catullus is trying to mock Arrius
as much as possible.
eius: This is the only time in Catullus that
the genitive eius is used (Fordyce 376). Although eius is rare
in poetry (Quinn 420), Propertius uses it twice and Ovid once
at the end of the hexameter line of an elegiac couplet as Catullus
does here (Fordyce 376).
(6) dixerat: Again dixerat falls directly after
the caesura, emphasizing not only that this is what Arrius said,
but also what his whole mother’s side of the family said.
(7) misso in Syriam: According to Fordyce,
misso refers to "an official journey" (376). Catullus
is probably alluding to the journey to Syria in 55 B.C. (Forsyth
518) with Crassus who assumed governorship (Merrill 205). This
mention of Syria helps to date the poem reasonably to around
this time (Thomson 513).
requierant: Here, a syncopated form requierant takes the place
of the pluperfect requieverant in order to fit the meter (Garrison
183).
omnibus: This is a dative of possession with
aures: "the ears of all."
(8) audibant eadem haec leniter et leviter:
This is the only line completely free of the hissing ‘s’. In
this instance, the absense of sibiliance is appropriate; since
everyone believes Arrius to be gone, the line is free of over-aspirations
(Vandiver 339).
audibant: The manuscript says audiebant but
the the -iebant will not scan (Thomson 513). According to Thomson,
scribes often regularized the spelling with little attention
to metrical concerns (513). Similar to audibant, custodibant
and scibant appear in C.64. 319 and in C.68. 85 respectively
(Quinn 420). The subject is omnes, implied from the omnibus
in the previous line (Quinn 420).
eadem haec: This refers back to the words commoda
and insidias (Quinn 420). Also an elision occurs between eadem
and haec, ironic because the ‘very words’ Arrius mispronounces
are aspirated correctly in this form (Vandiver 339-40).
leniter et leviter: These two words were often
used together because of their alliterative nature (Thomson
513). Fordyce suggests "smoothly" and "softly"
for the respective translations (376). Garrison takes leniter
et leviter to mean that the words (commoda and insidias) are
being pronounced correctly (156). Merrill, on the other hand,
asserts that other people are misusing the aspirates as well,
but they lack the gusto and force with which Arrius pronounces
them (205). Based on the fact that everyone’s ears got a rest
when Arrius left town, it would seem that the smoothness and
softness with which everyone else pronounces the words indicates
that they are being pronounced correctly—without rough breathing.
Also the Roman term for the Greek mark indicating the lack of
an initial ‘h’ sound was spiritus levis (Quinn 420), which Catullus
clearly makes a pun on with leviter. The pun suggests that these
words are being spoken correctly, rather than just more quietly.
(9) postilla: This is an archaic word (Thomson
514), which has a shorter span than either posthac or postea,
and according to Fordyce appears for the last time here (377).
(10) cum subito affertur nuntius horribilis:
By placing nuntius horribilis at the end of the line, Catullus
creates a "climax" as well as a "mock-heroic
tone" to this line which leaves the reader anticipating
what exactly was brought back (Quinn 420). Furthermore, horribilis
ends the line just as hinsidias does twice (lines 2 and 4) and
Hionian does once (line 12); therefore, horribilis—correctly
aspirated—stands in direct opposition to the words Arrius mis-aspirates
(Vandiver 340). Horribilis itself also suggests several things.
Not only is simply the message "horrible" but also
the very sound of the word is "rough," reminding the
reader of horreo and thus of a "bristling" sound (Quinn
420). For Thomson, horribilis has an "implication of rough
seas" because Catullus also uses horridam in 4.8 as a description
of the sea as well as in 11.11 when he says horribile aequor.
The roughness here anticipates, therefore, the Ionian waves
to come later in C.84. (This affects the reading of the last
word of C.84; see the not one Hionios.)
affertur: A historic present (Quinn 420).
(11) Ionios fluctus: The Ionian Sea is located
to the west of Greece (Forsyth 519)—a part of the Mediterranean
Sea that Arrius would have crossed first on his journey to Syria
(Merrill 205).
(12) Hionios: By ending the poem with this
word, Catullus upholds his tight structure of aspirated words
throughout his poem (Vandiver 340). Yet scholars argue whether
the joke of Ionios becoming Hionios is clever enough for Catullus.
Many, thinking that it is not, have proposed possible puns on
Hionios. Harrison suggested that Hionios was suggestive of the
Greek word cio¢ enouz which would imply that Arrius had
brought a wintry blast to the Ionian (199). According to Einarson,
horribilis in line 10 causes the reader to expect something
hair-raising, thus, paving the way for the "chill of the
‘Sea of Snow'" (188). Already a rough passage, the news
that Arrius’ mispronunciation made the waves even rougher would
be horrible news to any Roman (Bell 139). Quinn accepts cio¢
enouz as the most probable solution to the final joke (Quinn
420). Yet Fordyce completely rejects this, arguing that there
is nothing more to the joke than simply Arrius’ mispronunciation
(377). Recently, Nicholson has suggested a completely different
solution. Hionios is a play on "Chian," a wine made
on the Ionian island Chios, and the joke of the poem is not
that Arrius pronounces everything incorrectly but that he is
a well-known drunk (303). Following this reading, liber in line
5 is a reference to Bacchus, suggesting the entire family had
a party attitude (Nicholson 301). Also the s sounds throughout
the poem imply not the hissing of mispronunciation but the slurred
speech of a drunken man; in this same way, the repetition of
sic . . . sic . . . sic in line 5-6 could sound like hiccups
(Nicholson 301). For Nicholson, the most significant evidence
for this reading lies in the "Ariusian" variety of
Chian wine Pliny the Elder mentions; clearly, Ariusian wine
is a play on Arrius’ name (Nicholson 303). Although this interpretation
as well as the winteriness of cio¢ enouz, are possible,
Catullus often criticizes his enemies for their literary and
social shortcomings (as in poems 22, 36, and 95), and so it
seems to me that Fordyce might be correct in saying the joke
is no more complicated than its face value (375). Furthermore,
the intricate structure of the poem highlights Arrius’ mispronunciations
themselves so clearly that it seems Catullus is focusing on
Arrius’ lack of sophistication and his own literary superiority
more than anything else. TBJ
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