The Grammar of Love: Polyptoton in Catullus cc. 2 and 8

Ruth R. Caston (University of Michigan)

Catullus’ use of polyptoton in poems 2 and 8 has gone unnoticed, yet the pattern there is remarkable:

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
Quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
Cui primum digitum dare appetenti
Et acris solet incitare morsus, …           (c. 2.1-4)

Scelesta, vae te! Quae tibi manet vita?
Quis nunc te adibit? Cui videberis bella?
Quem nunc amabis? Cuius esse diceris?
Quem basiabis? Cui labella mordebis?
At tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.          (c. 8.15-19)

In c. 2, a relative pronoun opens each phrase of lines 2-3, and in a different case each time (ablative, accusative, dative). In c. 8, it is the interrogative pronoun that gets repeated, in a careful and symmetric arrangement (nominative, dative, accusative, genitive, then back to accusative and dative). My paper begins by tracing these sequences in poems 2 and 8, and then briefly compares them with other instances of polyptoton in Catullus (see Wills, Repetition in Latin poetry). The proximity and extent of these repetitions point to something more sophisticated than an ordinary use of the trope.

In the remainder of the paper, I suggest that the repetition of pronouns in cc. 2 and 8 exploits parallels between relationships in grammar and those in love. Generally speaking, pronouns are not only concerned with the identity of persons or objects, they also highlight the relationships in which persons and objects stand. And this is precisely what is at issue in poems 2 and 8: not just who or what figures in Lesbia’s life, but what her erotic attachment is to the poet and his rivals. Poem 2 reveals the connection between puella and sparrow by describing, via the relative pronoun, their pleasurable intimacy. The questions in poem 8 insistently highlight the issue of possession: now that Lesbia no longer belongs to the lover, whose will she be? And, though this is not explicit in the poem, whose will he be? The sequence of pronouns in quick succession prefigures the different aspects of physical and emotional intimacy. Running through the cases is like trying to discover how Lesbia fits into her lover’s life.

Catullus’ use of polyptoton in these poems also raises a question about pedagogical practice in Rome. Was there a standard order for presenting the cases? The evidence for the late Republic is unfortunately sketchy (see e.g. Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds). Yet the possibility of an allusion to a school paradigm is very intriguing. The transformation of a rote and ordinary exercise into something sophisticated could be compared to the unadorned language used in some of the epigrams to analyze what went wrong in the love affair. I suggest that Catullus uses what might have been a school exercise to reveal and dissect a more complex and nuanced phenomenon like love.