CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sexuality and Ritual: Catullus’ Wedding Poems
Though critics were slow to appreciate their beauty and poetic power, poems 61 and 62 always held a special place in the Catullan corpus. They are the first in a group of longer poems that occupy the central place in the collection as we have it, and both are customarily referred to as wedding hymns, although neither is a hymn in the technical sense of the term. Both poems celebrate marriage and its blessings for the couple, their families, and society in general. They also provide important information on aspects of Roman wedding ritual and illuminate the way gender roles were defined and understood within the framework of marriage, what part male and female sexuality played in the marital relationship, and the value placed on marriage from a personal, familial, social, and even political viewpoint. Lastly, these poems constitute a counterpoint to the disillusioned image of love expressed in the remainder of the corpus, the result of the poet’s failed relationship with Lesbia. The wedding poems, concentrating on the festive, positive aspects of marriage, offer renewed faith in the institution and its ability to provide personal fulfillment and promote social stability.
Scholars have long debated the Greek or Roman pedigree of these poems, whether they were composed for an actual occasion, and how closely they represent Roman wedding ceremonies. Poem 61 in particular purports to commemorate the wedding of a member of the Torquati, a prominent family in Republican Rome, to an otherwise unknown Iunia (or Vinia).1 For that reason primarily, the poem is thought to reflect Roman customs and beliefs. Poem 62 is a singing contest between choruses of maidens and youths. The antiphonal character of the poem led many to argue that it was performed after the nuptial dinner, and that it replicates Greek rather than Roman customs. Today scholarly consensus accepts that the poems were not performed at any particular wedding: even if we posit that 61 commemorates a real event and a real couple, the occasion rather serves as an opportunity for a more general celebration of marital love. Both poems omit important parts of the wedding ceremony, and the ritual acts that they represent do not fall within any distinct phase of Roman (or Greek) wedding ritual.
Yet the ritual context and content of the poems constitute an important lens through which we can gain a better understanding of their structure, themes, and problems. Ritual descriptions involve practices and customs recognized by all Romans, and thus furnish the poet with a shared “vocabulary” which is available for further manipulation and interpretation. Both poems are structured around specific moments of Roman wedding ritual: 61 begins as a hymn to Hymenaeus, the god of marriage; it continues as part of the deductio procession comprising the fescennina iocatio, and ends as an epithalamium, the song sung before the marital chamber. Although the specific ritual context of 62 is still the object of debate among scholars,2 its format as a singing contest of choruses of young girls and boys, a custom consistent with (some) Greek weddings (Thomsen 1992: 166, 174), and allusions to the Roman archaic ritual practice of raptio provide a firm link with the wedding ceremony.
Before I go on to discuss how the ritual context of the poems informs their content, a few words on the ritual wedding practices they represent are in order. The deductio procession was one of the most prominent features of the ceremony, so that the term uxorem ducere came to mean “to marry.” In the deductio, the couple’s relatives and wedding guests take the bride to her new home, which is usually the husband’s house. The procession was conducted by torchlight, and these torches (taedae) stand as a symbol for the wedding as a whole (Treggiari 1991: 166). There was musical accompaniment and the guests cried hymen hymenaee. The bridegroom does not take part in this event, as he has already gone to his house to welcome the bride. During the deductio, the fescennina iocatio took place. Although the precise origin of the name and the practice remain obscure (Fedeli 1983a: 86), it is certain that a group of young men sang obscene jokes at the expense of the groom. It seems that the groom himself was involved in the singing of the fescennine verses and that he threw nuts to the crowd (Treggiari 1991: 166). The ritual custom of raptio, no longer practiced at the time of Catullus, occurred at the beginning of the deductio. According to our sources (Fest. 364 Lindsay DVS; Macrob. Sat. 1.15.21), the members of the deductio pretend that they snatch the girl from her mother’s arms. The rite is also thought to commemorate the first Roman marriage, the rape of the Sabine women (Fedeli 1983a: 53).
Close attention to the ritual context surrounding both poems, and of the raptio in particular, can shed light on the most troubling features of each: in the case of 61, the great emphasis placed on the violence of the sexual act; in that of 62, the maidens’ negation of marriage. In the opening lines of 61 the marriage god Hymenaeus is said to promote the violent separation of mother and daughter (qui rapis teneram ad uirum/uirginem, “you who carry off the tender virgin to her husband,” 3–4). Similarly, in 62, Hesperus, a figure equivalent to Hymenaeus (Thomsen 1992: 178–86), is described as having carried off the bride (Hesperus e nobis, aequales, abstulit unam, “Hesperus, friends, has taken one of us,” 32). The fact that these themes would figure so prominently in poems celebrating marriage has caused great debate among scholars. If we look at the problem from an anthropological perspective, however, we can arrive at an explanation. The act of marriage entails a great change in the life of a Roman woman, who, at a very young age (Treggiari 1991: 400), is about to leave her natal family in order to live with her husband in her new, marital household. The prospect of permanent separation from the natal family is bound to generate feelings of great anxiety on the part of the bride. This anxiety is further compounded by concern over the sexual act and the act of defloration in particular. The bride’s family, in turn, also experiences a loss, both emotional and physical, as one of their members is about to be permanently separated from the group. In ritual, these anxieties are often expressed with rites of capture or rape, as the Roman practice of raptio attests. Eventually, these feelings of anxiety will give way to joy over the positive aspects of the new life awaiting the bride and groom.
Ritual thus both celebrates social institutions and the roles that the individual is called to play therein and gives voice to anxieties surrounding these very institutions and roles. As a result, Catullus, by making ritual such an integral part of his poems, incorporates the doubts and anxieties at work during this important phase of transition in a young person’s life. At the same time, however, ritual also helps assuage anxieties and celebrates the benefits of marriage for the individual and society at large, and therefore constitutes an excellent background against which the poet may explore the contours of these themes. Viewed in this light, the poems’ inherent problems and contradictions can be readily related to the greater Catullan poetic corpus, where love’s many forms and shapes are treated in as many different and often conflicting ways.
Although the poems overlap greatly in content and context, the following analysis will deal with them separately, focusing on what I believe are each poem’s most prominent themes. Poem 61 centers on the theme of appropriate sexual activity within the framework of marriage and defines the roles of husband and wife accordingly. Poem 62, on the other hand, by dramatizing the bride’s resistance to marriage, places emphasis on the competing nature of gender roles and the need for the individual to comply with society’s demands. The chapter concludes with an examination of the ways in which both poems eventually assert the positive and beneficial aspects of marriage for the Roman family, society, and state.
Poem 61: Sexuality and Marriage
As we have seen, the poem is structured around three distinct ritual acts of the wedding ceremony: the hymn to Hymenaeus (1–75), the deductio and the fescennina iocatio (76–184), and the epithalamium (185–end). In all three sections of the poem, there is a great emphasis on love and more specifically on physical love. The poem moves from the different roles that Hymenaeus is called upon to play in the couple’s union to the sexual obligations of man and woman in their new roles as husband and wife, and ends with an enumeration of the benefits of sexual concord for the couple and society.
Female sexuality
Physicality and violence as attributes of the god of marriage, Hymenaeus, emerge in the very first lines of the poem, where, as we have seen, he is said to “carry off the tender virgin to her husband” (qui rapis teneram ad uirum/uirginem, 3–4). The juxtaposition of rapis and teneram contrasts the violence of the god (and the groom) with the vulnerability of the maiden. By invoking the ritual background of raptio, the poem addresses both the problem of the bride’s separation from her natal family and her fear over the prospect of defloration:
te suis tremulus parens
inuocat, tibi uirgines
zonula soluunt sinus,
te timens cupida nouos
captat aure maritus.
tu fero iuueni in manus
floridam ipse puellulam
dedis a gremio suae
matris, o Hymenaee Hymen,
o Hymen Hymenaee.
(51–60)
you the trembling father calls
for his children, for you the maidens
loosen their dress from their girdle,
for you the new husband listens
fearful with eager ear.
you yourself gave into the hands
of the fierce youth the blooming maiden
from the embrace of her
mother, o Hymenaeus Hymen,
o Hymen Hymenaeus.
Parental anxiety is expressed with the use of the words suis tremulus to describe the father;3 the word order renders possible two readings: that the father is calling upon the god for the sake of his children and that the father is anxious for his children. The latter possibility is further strengthened by the subsequent reference to the potential violence of the sexual act. The image of the loosening of the maiden’s girdle, an image symbolic of the consummation of marriage, is also commemorated in ritual, where the bride ties her girdle in anticipation of the groom’s untying of it later on as they share their bed.4 The violence of the sexual act is implicit in the subsequent description of the young man’s eagerness (cupida aure) and fear (tremens) at the prospect; the use of the verb captare to indicate the husband’s fervor for Hymen also bears intimations of violence: the verb is a frequentative of capere (OLD s.v. 1 “to try to touch or take hold of, grasp at;” see also 1b, as if in wrestling).
The themes of sexual violence and separation as well as references to their ritual and legal counterparts continue in the next stanza. The repetition of tu to refer to Hymenaeus is typical of the language of hymns and serves to underscore the solemn character of the prayer. Ritual underpinnings may also be detected in the use of the expression a gremio suae/matris. Festus’ description of the raptio practiced in early Rome contains very similar language, leading scholars to believe he is replicating a ritual formula: rapi simulatur uirgo ex gremio matris, “they pretend to snatch the virgin from the embrace of her mother,” 364 Lindsay DVS (Fedeli 1983a: 53). At the same time, legal language is also operative in these lines. The phrase fero iuueni in manus is thought to be referring to marriage in manu, whereby the bride passed from the potestas of her father to that of her husband. This practice was rare in Catullus’ time but, like the raptio, it would be readily recognized by his audience. Through a combination of ritual and legal language symbolic of the bride’s transition to her new family, Catullus draws attention to the problems of separation from the natal family and the act of defloration.
The bride’s resistance to marriage is linked to her adherence to the female ideal of pudor, or modesty, which necessitates feelings of timidity toward her future husband but is also motivated by feelings of loyalty toward her own family. The bride’s modesty and unwillingness to part with her loved ones are at work in the next section of the poem, where she is called to come out of her house so that the deductio may begin (tardet ingenuus pudor ./quem tamen magis audiens,/flet quod ire necesse est, “Modest shame delays. Yet listening rather to it, she weeps because she must go,” 79–81). The whole segment, the song before the bride’s house (76–113), is structured around the delay that the bride’s virtue and emotions necessitate and the chorus’ efforts to overcome it so that the deductio may begin and the wedding be successfully completed.
The bride’s physical desire for her husband is carefully associated with her eventual fulfillment of her new role as wife and mistress of a new household. The first address to the bride is as mistress of her new home (domum dominam uoca, “call the mistress to her house,” 31). Her new social status is predicated upon the physical and emotional bond she feels for her spouse (coniugis cupidam noui,/mentem amore reuinciens, “desirous of her new husband, binding her mind with love,” 32–3): this notion is reinforced by a simile from nature, where the bride is likened to ivy and the husband to a tree: ut tenax hedera huc et huc/arborem implicat errans (“as here and there the clinging ivy wandering enfolds the tree,” 34–5). The connection of ivy and tree points to the physical and emotional connection of the couple, while the choice of the image of the clinging ivy enfolding the tree suggests both the wife’s dependency on her husband and the strength of their bond. A similar image appears later on in the poem and renders even more explicit the physical aspect of marital love (lenta sed uelut adsitas/uitis implicat arbores,/implicabitur in tuum/complexum, “but as the soft vine enfolds the nearby trees, he will be enfolded in your embrace,” 102–5): this time the wife is a vine that folds around the nearby trees and is equated with the bride’s embrace (complexum). The physical connection of the spouses, emphasized in the two similes through the use of the same verb (implicat), also establishes the complementarity of their roles. Physical and emotional desire form the foundation on which the stability of the new domus will rest.
The poem associates female beauty and vulnerability with virginity through an array of floral images. In one such instance, the bride is likened to a hyacinth in the garden of a rich master (talis in uario solet/diuitis domini hortulo/stare flos hyacinthinus, “so the hyacinth flower is accustomed to stand in the colorful garden of a rich master,” 87–8). The image of the garden flower within the context of wedding poetry is often employed to celebrate an ideal of female beauty that is free from the constraints of fertility and reproduction. Garden flowers do not participate in the cycle of cultivation and reproduction but exist apart, untouched by the world of agriculture and civilization.5 As a result, the beauty of the flower alone justifies its existence. Catullus modifies this image common to epithalamia by qualifying the garden as belonging to a rich master. As part of the master’s property, the beautiful flower thus enhances the owner’s status and power. This appears to be one of the roles a wife may be expected to play in marriage later on in the poem, where the bride is invited to contemplate the fact that her husband’s domus, to which she now belongs, is powerful (potens, 149) and prosperous (beata, 150). The wife’s beauty and virtue as passive objects for display constitute assets for her husband and his household.
Virginity’s desirability, however, may fall victim to violent male sexuality, as the image of the hyacinth makes clear elsewhere. The hyacinth of 61 is the object of admiration but does not appear to be threatened. Another flower, however, this time in poem 62, is in danger of losing its beauty in a violent manner:
ut flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis,
ignotus pecori, nullo conuolsus aratro,
quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber;
multi illum pueri, multae optauere puellae:
idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
nulli illum pueri, nullae optauere puellae:
sic uirgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est;
cum castum amisit polluto corpore florem,
nec pueris iucunda manet, nec cara puellis.
(39–47)
As a flower is born hidden in a fenced garden,
unknown to the herd, torn up by no plow,
which the breezes caress, the sun strengthens, the rain raises;
many boys, many girls desire it:
when the same flower plucked by a sharp fingernail withers
no boys, no girls desire it:
so a virgin, while she remains untouched, is dear to her family;
when she has lost her pure flower with body polluted,
she remains neither sweet to the boys, nor dear to the girls.
The image of this flower has often been linked (Fraenkel 1955: 5; Stehle [Stigers] 1977: 90; M. J. Edwards 1992: 2) to a famous hyacinth in Sappho (L-P 105c):
as the hyacinth in the mountains the shepherds
trample with their feet, and its purple flower [falls] to the ground…
Female virginity is intensely sensual and thus precarious and fragile, subject to violence on the part of the male. By placing emphasis on these qualities of female sexuality, the chorus of the maidens in 62 does not recognize the possibility of defloration as a positive result of marriage, but rather prizes a perpetual existence in the sheltered world of virginity, exemplified by the image of the garden.
In 61, virginity as enhancing the power of female sexuality appears once again in the image of the bride waiting for her husband in the thalamos. She is described as glowing with a flowery face, like a white chamomile or a yellow poppy (uxor in thalamo tibi est,/ore floridulo nitens,/alba parthenice uelut/luteumue papauer, 185–8). The diminutive floridulo 6 conveys a sense of intimacy and tenderness towards the bride (Fedeli 1983a: 125) as well as a sense of vulnerability; the white parthenice draws attention to the bride’s virginity, as the word evokes the Greek word for the virgin (parthenos); lastly, the color of the poppy, luteum (yellow/orange), is also firmly associated with the bride, as the slippers she wears during the wedding ceremony are of the same color (lutei socci, also mentioned earlier in 61.10; see too Treggiari 1991: 163).
Male sexuality
If poem 61 presents female sexuality as subtle, sensual, and ultimately passive, male sexuality emerges as rampant, violent, and not easily controlled. Catullus employs the wedding ritual practice of fescennina iocatio in order to focus on male sexual desire. The chorus’ jokes involve a certain concubinus, or young male lover, who is now forced to end his affair with the groom. As the deductio marks in ritual terms the separation of the bride from her natal household, so the fescennina iocatio celebrates the man’s abandonment of sexual affairs outside the framework of marriage (Fedeli 1983a: 98), his sexual aggression controlled and aimed toward the procreation of children.
The husband’s attachment to the concubinus is the main theme of this portion of the poem;7 he must give up his male partner in order to effect a successful transition to married life. The chorus also calls on the concubinus himself to accept this event, asking him to recognize the marriage god (Talasius) as his master (126–7). Like the husband, the concubinus needs to enter the world of adulthood, his transition ritually symbolized in the giving of the nuts to the chorus and the cutting of his hair.
Both the nuts and the cutting of the hair as markers of transition constitute integral parts of the Roman wedding ceremony: as we have seen, the groom threw nuts to the boys at the end of the deductio, when the procession arrived at his house. This gesture is generally thought to express his abandonment of childhood (Fedeli 1983a: 90). In the poem, Catullus transfers the groom’s act to the concubinus to indicate that both need to relinquish former pleasures.8 At the same time, there is also a hint that the concubinus may pose a threat to the union of the new couple. If he refuses to give the nuts to the boys, as the chorus implies (nec nuces pueris neget, 121; da nuces pueris, 124), the deductio cannot be completed, and the bride cannot assume her rightful place in her husband’s home and thalamos. Indeed the chorus does not hesitate to remind the concubinus of who are appropriate sexual companions for him: the country wives (uilicae), whom he has so far despised (129–30). Presumably a slave, the concubinus will now have to forgo the society of elegant urban masters and settle for less refined female company.
The status of the concubinus as a potential threat to the couple is further emphasized through attributes he shares with the bride. One of these is the cutting of the hair (131–2). In Roman wedding ritual, the bride’s hair was arranged with the aid of a spear that had shed blood.9 The cutting of the concubinus ’ long hair on his master’s wedding day mirrors the parting of the bride’s hair with the spear. The chorus’ iocatio uses irony to underscore the boy’s effeminacy and laugh at his expense. They say that the cutting will be performed by the cinerarius, the person who normally warms the tongs used to curl the hair of matrons and of effeminate young men. The person who used to tend to the concubinus ’ long hair will now be cutting it (Fedeli 1983a: 94).
At the same time, the groom also shares with the concubinus traits which he is called on to give up as he is entering the state of marriage: the chorus refers to him as perfumed (unguentate…marite, 135). Romans believed that perfuming hair was a sign of effeminacy and that it was a practice wholly inappropriate for an adult male and a husband. The groom’s perfumed hair thus corresponds to the concubinus’ long hair, and their outward appearance reflects their status as adolescents in need of making the transition to adulthood. The groom’s attachment to male partners (glabris, 135), young household slaves with whom he enjoyed sexual pleasures, may jeopardize the sexual role he must now play as husband.10 As a result, the chorus calls on him to relinquish these pleasures (134–5), reminding him that they are no longer permitted to a married man (139–41).
The groom’s effeminacy, depicting a reluctance to assume his full role as a male, contrasts sharply with the sexual aggression he exudes while he waits for his bride at their marital bed. The use of the word immineat (166) to describe the groom’s state as he is lying on the bed not only intimates the physical aspect of male desire but also implies its aggressive and threatening nature: it is no coincidence that the same verb used in a military context describes a threat or menace (OLD s.v. 4b, 5, and 6). The potency of male desire is further confirmed in the next stanza, where the imagery of consuming fire, a topos in erotic poetry, here depicts the new husband. Once again, male desire is characterized as more intense than female, the man said to be “burning deeper inside” than the woman (uritur…penite magis, 170–1).
Effeminacy and liminality are also closely linked with sexual aggression in the description of the god of marriage himself, Hymenaeus. The poem opens by alluding to the god’s feminine nature: he wears a garland of flowers and bridal accoutrements (6–10). Hymenaeus’ feminine features are well established in literary and rhetorical descriptions of the god (Fedeli 1983a: 26–7). They also appear in the myths surrounding his person: he is said to have been a young man who disguised himself as a woman in order to be close to the woman he loved (Serv. ad Aen. 4.99). Hymenaeus’ femininity reflects his status as a youth about to make the transition into manhood. His assumption of a female identity occurs before he is able to prove worthy of his future wife. Similarly, in another mythic version, Hymenaeus dies tragically on his wedding day (Pindar fr. 128c.7–8 S-M). In this case, his failure to enter male adulthood showcases the risks inherent in the stage of transition (treated at length in Catullus 63). Nevertheless, despite his femininity, the god’s sexual aggression is unmistakable: as we have seen, Hymenaeus elicits the compliance of the bride for the sexual act and serves as a model for the groom (51–5). The portrait of the god thus resembles that of Manlius: the formerly effeminate groom is ready to perform his sexual role in the context of marriage.
Sex and the ideal marriage
Female and male sexuality are accordingly important elements in Catullus’ conception of marriage. At the same time, however, the poem places great emphasis on the problems to the new couple’s union that sexual desire may pose. The incredible power of sex necessitates that it be controlled through the laws of marriage. The goddess Venus as a metonymy for sexual power is redefined throughout the poem by a careful identification with Hymenaeus. Yet the power of Venus remains formidable and the question of whether it can be contained within the bounds of marriage is never fully resolved.
More specifically, the poem repeatedly asserts that Hymenaeus alone constitutes the repository of appropriate physical love. Venus is accompanied by the epithet bona to denote legitimate love (Fedeli 1983a: 44), (dux bonae Veneris, boni/coniugator amoris, “the herald of favorable Venus, the uniter of honest love,” 44–5), as opposed to adultery (denoted by malus and turpis: non tuus leuis in mala/deditus uir adultera,/probra turpia persequens,/a tuis teneris uolet/secubare papillis, “your husband will not, devoted to a wicked adulteress, pursuing shameful disgrace, wish to lie far from your soft breast,” 97–101). Hymenaeus is the deity with the ultimate power, as he alone is responsible for the love that brings bona fama, the only acceptable type of love. Venus’ power is thus reconfigured to comprise physical love only within marriage (nil potest sine te Venus,/fama quod bona comprobet,/commodi capere, at potest/te uolente, “without you [Hymenaeus] Venus can take no pleasure that honorable fame may approve: but she can, if you are willing,” 61–4).
The final invocation to the groom also concludes with the theme of legitimate sexual pleasure. The chorus prays that bona Venus may help him as he seeks physical and emotional love in socially acceptable ways (bona te Venus/iuuerit, quoniam palam/quod cupis cupis, et bonum/non abscondis amorem, “may favorable Venus help you, because you desire what you desire openly and you do not hide your honorable love,” 195–8; see also Fedeli 1983a: 127). The physical aspect of the groom’s desire is meant here, as this portion of the song takes place before the thalamos, the marital chamber. The groom is in a hurry to meet his wife (194–5) and the chorus encourages him to give free rein to his desire after the delay of the ritual (Fedeli 1983a: 128).
Physical love as a primary concern for the felicity of the conjugal state is further conveyed through two images of counting, those of the sands of Africa and of the stars (199–203). Both images are used by Catullus in poem 7, in an explicitly physical context, as examples of the number of kisses the poet and Lesbia would share. Catullus’ mobilization of the context of the earlier poem underscores the sexual aspect of the ludi the couple enjoys but also hints that this type of love may be as pleasurable in adultery, as in the case of our poet and his Lesbia. As a result, the images bring to the foreground the destabilizing, threatening nature of physical love.
The chorus’s urging of the couple to enjoy the pleasures of marital sex (ludite ut lubet, 204) is followed by the reminder that its ultimate purpose is the procreation of legitimate children.11 Having once again established appropriate parameters for sex, the chorus concludes by encouraging the newlyweds to enjoy physical love within the constraints of marriage (at boni/coniuges, bene uiuite et/munere assiduo ualentem/exercete iuuentam, “but you happy spouses live happily and in constant pleasures engage your vigorous youth,” 225–8). The vocabulary of marital felicity is repeated here to bring the poem’s themes full circle: the couple will be virtuous and therefore happy in their marriage (boni) and will live in harmony (bene) (Thomson 1997: 363; Fedeli 1983a: 145). Yet the chorus’s last exhortation is to the enjoyment of physical love (Fedeli 1983a: 146) and of the pleasures of youth, while they remain silent on the other important aspects of marital life. Thus the poem concludes with an emphasis on sexual pleasure. Whether it is possible to contain it within marriage alone is a question ultimately left open.
Poem 62: Resistance to Marriage
While poem 61 ends with the theme of marital harmony, poem 62 shifts gears and dramatizes the battle of the sexes and female resistance to marriage in particular. The poem belongs to the genre of the carmen amoebaeum or singing contest, developed by the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. In Roman literature, the most famous examples of such contests are Vergil’s Eclogues 3 and 7. Like the other poems in this genre, Catullus 62 pays close attention to structural symmetry, whereby each stanza (strophe) is followed by a response (antistrophe) in the same number of lines. The poem begins with introductory lines spoken by a chorus of youths, followed by a response from a chorus of maidens (1–10). A statement on the part of the youths concludes this introductory section (11–19). Then follows the singing match proper, consisting of three pairs of stanzas (20–58). The poem ends with an epilogue (59–66). Throughout the poem, each stanza is followed by a refrain, which forms another important structural device. In the second pair of stanzas, however, the text is heavily damaged, which has resulted in lively scholarly controversy as to how many lines are spoken by the maidens and the youths (Thomson 1997: 365). Further debate has arisen over who speaks the final lines of the epilogue.12
As in 61, here too ritual elements underscore the poem’s content. As a result, ritual once again constitutes a background against which the theme of female resistance to marriage is played out. The question of the precise ritual setting of the poem has given yet another occasion for debate among scholars. Fraenkel (1955), in a highly influential article, suggested that the poem reflects Roman rather than Greek wedding customs, while Tränkle (1981) and Courtney (1985) argued an opposing view.13 More recently, Goud (1995: 31–2) has claimed that the contest takes place at the end of the banquet and before the deductio begins. This is the moment of the raptio, the ritual tearing away of the bride from her mother’s embrace. Thomsen (1992: 166–73) believes that the contest is linked to the absence of the bride. He rightly points out that if the maidens are not defeated in the singing match and the bride does not return, the wedding cannot take place. As a result, the poem and its ritual context dramatize a moment of crisis. The resistance of the maidens and of the bride will, however, be eventually overcome with the return of the bride and the completion of the deductio procession. The bride’s return symbolizes her willing integration into her marital household and her new role as a Roman wife. Thus the poem’s ritual context serves to give voice to anxieties inherent in the events it celebrates, while at the same time it provides comfort and reassurance by stressing the benefits of marriage for all.
Let us now turn to the poem itself in order to observe how the contest between male and female is articulated; in what ways it provides a space where competing ideas about the role of men and women within marriage arise; and whether female resistance is eventually replaced by a joyful anticipation of married life.
The poem’s opening stanzas state explicitly that the contest is about victory: the boys rise to sing (surgere iam tempus, 3), the girls rise in return (consurgite contra, 6) and express the wish to win the singing match (canent quod uincere par est, “they will sing something that it is right to surpass,” 9). The boys further perceive that the girls are formidable competition (non facilis nobis, aequales, palma parata est, “no easy palm of victory is ready for us, friends,” 11) and that their own lack of preparation will jeopardize their chances of winning (iure igitur uincemur: amat uictoria curam, “we will be defeated rightly: victory loves care,” 16). The poem thus begins with the presumption that marriage provides resolution to an existing struggle between the sexes, whereby one will submit to the superiority of the other. In this light, the maidens’ resistance is not wholly surprising. The vocabulary of victory (uincere, 9; palma, 11; uincemur and uictoria, 16) employed by both sides negates or at least undermines the professed complementarity and harmony in the roles of husband and wife and rather dwells on the necessity of a power differential between the sexes.
The context of competition and victory provides fruitful ground on which opposing attitudes to marriage on the part of the youths and the maidens are articulated. In each pair of stanzas, the girls call on Hesperus, the evening star, to complain of the violence of male sexuality and the dominance of male over female, while the boys cast the same god as a guarantor of progress and civilization. More specifically, in the first stanza of the contest proper, the reality of male violence is repeatedly asserted: Hesperus is called most cruel (quis caelo fertur crudelior ignis?, “what is a more cruel fire in the sky?” 20) and is twice said to tear the girl away from her mother (qui natam possis complexu auellere matris,/complexu matris retinentem auellere natam, “who can tear the daughter from her mother’s embrace, tear away the clinging daughter from her mother’s embrace,” 21–2). Like Hesperus, the husband exhibits a burning desire for the girl (iuueni ardenti, 23) and his union with the bride is compared to the capture of a city by an enemy (quid faciunt hostes capta crudelius urbe?, “what more cruel thing do enemies do when they have captured a city?” 24). Marriage is thus presented as violent and destructive.
The boys, however, cast marriage as a social institution that guarantees unity not only between the sexes but also between families. The point is emphasized through the use of legal language to describe Hesperus/marriage as a mutual contract (desponsa…conubia, “the contracted nuptials,” 27) which is enduring ( firmes, “you confirm,” 27) and binding for the spouses and their families (quae pepigere uiri, pepigerunt ante parentes, “which husbands and fathers have promised beforehand,” 28).14 Marriage also provides a most desirable unity among the parties involved, a unity not achieved by other means (nec iunxere prius quam se tuus extulit ardor, “united not before your fire has risen,” 29). The chorus conclude their argument by attributing to divine authority the provenance of the institution of marriage (quid datur a diuis felici optatius hora?, “what more desirable thing do the gods give than the happy hour?” 30), thus establishing the superiority of the social aspects of marriage to the personal and familial ones invoked by the maidens. At the same time, the boys’ version of the importance of marriage is confined to a male perspective: the contracts are made by husbands and fathers (uiri, parentes, 28), with the females thus relegated to the role of passive compliance. As a result, the boys’ claim of unity and harmony is predicated upon female submission to male authority.
The theme of marriage as violent and lawless rape on the one hand and as an integral part of a lawful and civilized society on the other continues in the next pair of stanzas. Although the text of the strophe is badly damaged, most scholars agree that it contains an explicit reference to the raptio ritual. Thomsen (1992: 182) offers evidence that the verb auferre is also used in the context of Proserpina’s rape in Ovid’s Fasti (4.445, 4.448). The textual gap makes the context of the maidens’ reproach to Hesperus particularly difficult to understand,15 but the boys’ response depicts him as a catcher of thieves and a guarantor of law and order in a manner very similar to that of their previous statement (namque tuo aduentu uigilat custodia semper, /nocte latent fures, quos idem saepe reuertens, /Hespere, mutato comprendis nomine Eous, “for when you come the guards are always awake, the thieves hide at night, whom you often catch when you return, Hesperus, the same but with changed name, Eous,” 33–5; Thomsen 1992: 263). At the same time, the boys’ claims once again undermine the validity of those of the girls: just as in the previous stanza female participation in the legal proceedings of the wedding was purely secondary, so in this instance the girls’ reproaches to Hesperus are discredited as false ( ficto…questu, “with false complaint,” 36). As a result, the boys appropriate the function of Hesperus/marriage in order to validate their point of view, while they also affirm the superiority of their voice over that of the other sex.16
In the final pair of stanzas, the maidens and youths introduce images from nature to support their respective claims. As we have seen earlier, the girls advocate virginity in the image of a beautiful, untouched flower, whose purpose is a peaceful existence free from the constraints of marriage and fertility but which is subject to violent destruction on the part of the male. The boys manipulate the same concept and embed it in the realm of agriculture, which necessarily promotes fertility and reproduction, the indispensable consequences of marriage for society at large. Thus the flower now becomes a vine that needs to be united in marriage to the elm (at si forte eadem est ulmo coniuncta marito, “but if by chance the same one is joined to an elm as her husband,” 54).17 The image of marriage presented here initially appears as one that prescribes equal and complementary roles for husband and wife (par conubium, “equal marriage,” 57),18 and that promotes harmony between the sexes so that the important function of reproduction may take place. Yet the last statement of the boys’ chorus returns to the theme of the antagonism between the sexes. The state of marriage emerges as most desirable for men (cara uiro magis et minus est inuisa parenti, “she [i.e., the bride] is more dear to her husband and less hateful to her father,” 58), while there is no mention of the woman’s sentiments. Thus the singing match concludes, as it started, with a privileging of the male perspective and an affirmation of the power differential between the sexes.
Ideal Marriage for Family and State
In both poems, female resistance to marriage eventually gives way to the joys of the new life awaiting the bride and groom. In the conclusion of poem 62, the bride is urged to comply with social demands that require that she enters the state of marriage willingly (60–5):
non aequom est pugnare, pater cui tradidit ipse,
ipse pater cum matre, quibus parere necesse est.
uirginitas non tota tua est, ex parte parentum est,
tertia pars patrist, pars est data tertia matri,
tertia sola tua est: noli pugnare duobus,
qui genero sua iura simul cum dote dederunt.
It is not right to vie with him to whom your father himself gave you,
your father himself with your mother, whom it is necessary to obey.
Your virginity is not all your own, part of it belongs to your parents,
a third belongs to your father, a third was given to your mother,
only a third is your own: do not vie with two,
who have given to their son-in-law their rights along with the dowry.
Regardless of who speaks these final lines,19 the arithmetic used to define the woman’s identity20 focuses on her obligations vis-à-vis her family and by extension on the reciprocity fundamental to the proper function of social relations. Personal attachments or other concerns, such as those voiced by the chorus of maidens in the course of the contest, must be abandoned. The language of arithmetic and ownership is accompanied by legal terminology (sua iura, dote),21 thus validating the line of argument the boys have employed all along.
Marriage necessitates female submission to social constraints because its main purpose is socially determined. Through marriage the continuation of the family line, whose significance for society at large hardly needs mention, is ensured. Poem 61 takes special note of the importance of reproduction for the survival of the household while it also stresses the ideal of reciprocity governing the relationship between parents and children: just as the children depend on their parents in order to grow and reach adulthood, so the parents rely on their children in their old age: nulla quit sine te domus/liberos dare, nec parens/stirpe nitier; at potest/te uolente, “no house can give children without you, nor a parent rely on his offspring; but it can if you are willing” (66–9).
Furthermore, marriage is the only framework within which familial felicity may be achieved, as the tender image of young Manlius on his mother’s lap, reaching over to his father smiling (209–13), attests. Important reminders follow: legitimate children alone secure continuity within the family (214–23):
sit suo similis patri
Manlio et facile insciis
noscitetur ab omnibus,
et pudicitiam suae
matris indicet ore.
talis illius a bona
matre laus genus approbet,
qualis unica ab optima
matre Telemacho manet
fama Penelopeo.
Let him look like his father
Manlius and be recognized
easily by all strangers,
and by his face declare
the chastity of his mother.
May such praise from a virtuous mother
prove the worth of his family
like the unparalleled fame
that endures for Penelope’s Telemachus
from his honorable mother.
Continuity is particularly crucial in the case of the Torquati, a family famous for saving the Capitol from the Gauls and perhaps even more famous for putting a son to death, an action that appears to have rendered them in the eyes of their fellow Romans both heroic and inhuman.22 The image of the young child reaching over to his father has therefore particular resonance. Without children this noble family, as well as any other family, is bound to face extinction (see also Newman 1990: 206–7).
Familial continuity, however, rests wholly upon female fidelity. The paradigm of Penelope is pivotal in making this point.23 The magnitude of her contribution to her family’s lasting fame may also be seen in the poet’s naming of Telemachus. While one would expect a patronymic, Telemachus is instead defined as the son of Penelope (Telemacho…Penelopeo). Female fidelity is the sole means by which legitimate children may guarantee not only the family’s survival but also its good standing in the community. It constitutes therefore an integral part of the greater network of social relations. The woman’s willing participation in marriage is indispensable for the proper functioning of society as a whole.
Family in Roman thought often serves as a microcosm for the state, and poem 61 is no exception. In enumerating the blessings of marriage, the poet also makes a brief yet critical mention of the intimate relationship between procreation and the safety of the state: marriage produces soldiers who will defend the land (quae tuis careat sacris,/non queat dare praesides/terra finibus: at queat/te uolente, “the land which should lack your sacred rites could not give guardians for its borders: but it could if you are willing,” 71–4). Rome’s military and political power is therefore contingent upon this vital social institution.
Yet despite the positive view of marriage and its focus on social demands, hints of resistance persist. Poem 62 may assign two-thirds of the woman’s identity to others but the final third belongs to herself. And though the boys’ perspective may appear to prevail, many readers claim that the girls’ arguments have greater resonance (Stehle [Stigers] 1977: 97; Thomsen 1992: 229) and fit neatly with the theme of the failure of marriage in the other long poems. Most importantly, the images of female resistance and vulnerability deployed in these poems find their starkest expression in the image of another flower touched by a plow in poem 11.22–4 (Stehle [Stigers] 1977: 98; M. J. Edwards 1993: 185–6; see Greene, this volume). The male narrator’s self-identification with the delicate flower lends greater gravity and poignancy to the absence of a true integration of female anxieties and social constraints in 61 and 62.
Catullus’ wedding poems have such a lasting impact on their readers precisely because they mobilize the emotive power of ritual in order to give expression to female anxiety over the violence connected with the act of defloration. Ritual context and poetic content validate female resistance to marriage as a powerful manifestation of the conflict between individual needs and societal demands. But unlike ritual ceremonies, where anxieties are expressed in order to be assuaged so that the new phase in the life of the couple can be duly celebrated, Catullus’ poems are often most remembered for their haunting delineation of female fragility.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to express my warm thanks to the editor for inviting me to participate in this volume and for her perceptive comments, which helped improve this chapter.
NOTES
1 On the debate on the bride’s name, see Thomson (1997: 348); Ready (2004: 153 n. 1).
2 Some believe the poem to reflect Greek wedding customs (Tränkle 1981; Courtney 1985; Thomsen 1992), while others consider them Roman (Fraenkel 1955; G. Williams 1958).
3 The word has often been taken to mean “trembling with old age” on the basis of its use later on in the poem: tremulum mouens/cana tempus anilitas, “white-haired old age shaking its trembling head,” 154–5. But, given the context, it is more likely that it is used here to convey parental distress (see Thomson 1997: 353–4).
4 It should be noted here that Catullus attributes to the bride a gesture that was performed by the groom. See Fest. 55 Lindsay DVS; Fedeli (1983a: 50). The active participation of the girl in the sexual act is incongruent with other images of her as a passive recipient of the groom’s advances and anticipates her eventual sexual awakening – which, however, will be reserved for her husband alone.
5 Stehle [Stigers] (1977: 87) on the image of the flower in Sappho and Catullus.
6 On the use of this adjective, see also Ready (2004: 156–7).
7 Fedeli (1983a: 96–7) offers evidence that giving up illicit affairs was one of the standard themes of epithalamia.
8 On the debate on what the nuts may symbolize, see Fedeli (1983a: 88–90) and Thomsen (1992: 48–9).
9 Implications of violence are also inherent in this ritual act. The spear that has shed blood is also a symbol of the violence of the act of defloration, marked in humans by the shedding of blood. See Burkert (1983: 62).
10 On the groom as preferring homoeroticism to married life, see Thomsen (1992: 63–73). As a master, however, Manlius would have an active sexual role in his relationship with the young household slaves and there is nothing in the text to suggest otherwise. See Butrica (2005: 224); C. A. Williams (1999: 274 n. 97). On the role of the glaber, see C. A. Williams (1999: 73).
11 On the benefits of procreation, see discussion below.
12 See below, n. 19.
13 Thomsen (1992: 174–93) offers support for the importance of Greek wedding ritual for an understanding of poem 62, yet he admits that the references to the raptio point to Roman ritual customs. He concludes (p. 193) that the poem reflects mainly Greek customs but also contains Roman elements.
14 Thomson (1997: 367) notes that the lines refer to the ceremony of sponsalia, where the sponsio, the signing of the wedding contract between the bride’s father and the fiancé, took place.
15 Thomsen (1992: 182) calls into question the scholarly consensus that the lacuna reproaches Hesperus as a thief. He rightly notes that after the previous stanza’s references to Hesperus as a violent rapist a description of him as a thief would be rather anticlimactic.
16 On the importance of this statement for the poem as a whole, see Thomsen (1992: 227–30).
17 On the debate on the provenance of the image, see Fraenkel (1955: 8); Courtney (1985: 87).
18 par here also denotes an equal match with respect to social rank. See Quinn (1973a: 281).
19 Most commentators (e.g., Fraenkel 1955: 6; Quinn 1973a: 282) believe that the lines are spoken by the boys. Certainly the language the boys employ throughout the poem supports this argument. Others point out that the rules of the genre dictate that the contest concludes with the winner (see Thomsen 1992: 171). Eclogue 7, however, provides evidence that this is not always the case (M. J. Edwards 1993: 44). Goud (1995: 31–2) suggests that it is the leader of the girls’ chorus, acting as a pronuba, who urges the bride to yield. Thomsen (1992: 223–30) argues that this is the poet’s voice: he has the last word in the other long poems, while it is not surprising that the male point of view prevails, since the poet is a man after all. Earlier (pp. 212–14) Thomsen adduces yet another convincing argument for his case by drawing a parallel with Plautus’ Casina: he interprets the passage as containing an exhortation to the bride to consummate the marriage, which in the play is uttered by the pronuba and in 61.204–5 by the poet.
20 On the pedigree of the division of identity into thirds, see Ellis (1889: 199) and Thomsen (1992: 217).
21 Thomsen (1992: 222) suggests that the use of these terms refers to marriage in manu.
22 Cic. Fin. 1.35. The speaker, a descendant of Torquatus, asserts that Manlius put his son to death for the sake of military discipline and the greater good. Livy’s account (8.19) offers similar motives for Manlius’ actions.
23 On the importance of Penelope at this juncture and its relationship to the poem’s earlier reference to the myth of Paris, see Ready (2004: 155–6).
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
There exist two monographs on the wedding poems, both indispensable for any in-depth study: Fedeli (1983a) on 61 and Thomsen (1992) on 61 and 62. Fedeli provides a thorough analysis of the ritual and stylistic elements of the poem; he extensively cites probable sources, and offers judicious discussion of all the evidence as well as valuable insights on problems of interpretation. Thomsen’s book is not as easily readable. But the author rewards the reader patient enough to sift through his rather unusual expository method and provides subtle and interesting interpretations of the poems. He also offers a very thorough discussion of the existing bibliography. For those interested in the question of the Greek origins of these poems, Courtney (1985), Fraenkel (1955), Newman (1990), Tränkle (1981), and G. Williams (1958) will provide ample opportunity for further study. Additionally, on the relationship between Sappho and Catullus’ wedding images, Stehle [Stigers] (1977) is an excellent place to start, while M. J. Edwards (1992) is also very useful. The existing commentaries on the poems offer little help: Thomson (1997) often falls short in answering the most vexing questions, but the bibliography appended to each poem is extremely helpful. Quinn (1973a) is perhaps more useful for the student beginning to tackle these poems, but unfortunately a lot of the information contained therein is out of date.
WORKS CITED
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Courtney, E. 1985. “Three Poems of Catullus.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London 32: 85–100.
Edwards, M. J. 1992. “Apples, Blood and Flowers: Sapphic Bridal Imagery in Catullus.” In C. Leroux, ed., Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History VI. Collection Latomus 217. Brussels. 181–203.
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Tränkle, H. 1981. “Catullprobleme.” Museum Helveticum 38: 245–58.
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