Catullus The Poems

Translated by Rodney G. Dennis
Introduced by David Lattimore
Illustrations by Andrew Zega & Bernd Dams
Engravings by John Wallace

Brown morocco and green paste paper
Portfolio of Unbound Prints

The Poet

Most of what we know of Gaius Valerius Catullus we know from his poems, which are unusually full of personal information. The poems (with one exception) have survived in only one manuscript, which appeared mysteriously in his native Verona in the thirteenth century, was copied and then disappeared permanently. The poet lived from 84 to ca. 54 bce, before the civil wars, the empire and before Virgil, whom he influenced profoundly.

The son of a rich provincial merchant,he arrived in Rome young, clever and obviously very winning and was instantly taken up by members of the highest society. He became the center of a small group called the “New Poets” who were precious, learned and, apparently, exasperating to their elders and whose works have not survived outside of fragments and the one Veronese manuscript. Catullus had no patron and was afraid of no man. He wrote scurrilously about Julius Caesar, who was a friend of his father, but relented, apparently under the pressure of Caesar’s charm. His brother died in Asia Minor. Catullus had a stint as a minor official in the province of Bithynia. He took as a mistress a beautiful, powerful and corrupt woman ten years his senior who caused him torment without end. He died before he was thirty.

The Poetry

The idea of the poet as a rogue, encountered in such different persons as Villon, Heine and Frank O’Hara, has its real origin in the poems of Catullus. He seems completely open, has no secrets, only faults, is extremely funny and winning and vulnerable. What is hidden is his precocious learning and his enormous intelligence. And unlike any of his contemporaries, he frequently writes in a language that must have been very close to real, spoken Latin. There are also times, in the longer poems, when he becomes obscurely allusive and expects the reader— his close, exquisite companions— to know everything. The modern reader is astonished at how close he feels to Catullus.

The Poems

The poems are in three parts which were probably issued
separately: sixty short poems in a variety of metres, many obsessively examining his failed love affair with “Lesbia” from every possible angle; four long poems about weddings including an utterly remarkable description of a self-destructive religious frenzy no. 63 and the long poem, 408 lines, on the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, a masterpiece that Virgil learned from and knew by heart; poems 65 to 116 are all in elegiac metre, some learned, many scurrilous, epigramatic or obscene, others still attempting to unravel his terrible love affair. A strong case can be made for claiming Catullus as the creator of the short, personal poem as we know it today. He is, as David Lattimore said, “the most popular of Roman poets.”

Rodney Dennis

Rodney Dennis, retired after many years as Curator of Manuscripts in Harvard’s Houghton Library, is a poet and translator. In addition to books and articles about manuscripts, he has published an anthology of Neo-Latin poems, Poemata Humanistica Decem, a translation of a work of Christian Kabbalah, The Epistle of Secrets, and two collections of his own poetry.

David Lattimore

David Lattimore, retired Professor of East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Brown University, has devoted himself over many years to translations of and commentaries on the works of the Chinese lyric poet Du Fu (712-770). he is the author of Harmony of the World, an anthology of Chinese verse from the beginning to Mao Tse-tung. He and Rodney Dennis were classmates at the Putney School from 1945-1948.

The Engravings

The five plates by Andrew Zega and Bernd Dams depict historic images that would have been aesthetically familiar to the time in which Catullus was writing. They include a Roman bust from the collection of the Louvre, an imperial Roman helmet, an oil lamp from Naples, a classical bird cage (for Lesbia’s sparrow) in the shape of the Temple of the Vestals in Rome and a divan (see poem 64) inspired by 18th century neo-classical renderings of Roman furniture. Andrew Zega, an American architectural watercolorist and designer, and Bernd H. Dams, a German architect and architectural historian, have exhibited their work extensively in museum’s and galleries and collaborated on numerous books including Pleasure Pavilions and Follies, about the gardens of pre-Revolutionary France. The steel plates were hand-engraved from their designs by John Wallace. Mr. Wallace is one of the most accomplished banknote engravers in the United States— having engraved several postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, including the Crazy Horse and Albert Einstein stamps, as well as presidential portraits, stock certificates and currency.

The Edition

Catullus: The Poems is printed letterpress on paper made especially for the edition. It is hand-bound in dark green morrocan goatskin and handmade paste paper and marble endpapers. Each copy is presented in a black, velvet-lined, linen tray case. The edition is limited to 200 copies, each signed by the translator, the introducer and the artists. In addition the engravings are available in a portfolio of unbound prints limited to 200 copies. Each print is signed by the artists.

 

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