Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Catullus 85

In another forum, Hope reminds us of the timelessness of experience.
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.


I hate and I love. Why does this happen, perhaps you ask?
I know not, but I know that it happens and I am tortured.
Catullus lived and loved and wrote in the first century before Christ.

The modern scholarly resource Wikipedia notes that Anakreon laid down a similar riff four centuries earlier.
I love and yet I do not love,
I am crazy and I am not crazy.
This is exactly what I've been saying. I've been saying I'm crazy, that I love, that I don't love, that all this trouble stems from actually being sane.

It ain't workin'.

I wrote a lot more and deleted it. It suffices to say I must be crazy. The poets say so.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suppose it's some consolation to know that you are in good company. I wouldn't mind being able to claim some emotional kinship with Catullus, or with anyone even remotely interesting, for that matter.

Anonymous said...

Ah, thank you for a blast from my favorite poet. As I am a Raunchy Old Tart, I tend to prefer his cheerful snarls at Ameana, Aurelius and so on, but any day when I run across GVC is a good day. One of my butter regrets is never having studied Latin to a degree that would allow me to really cruise along with the original text.

I owe you an apology for letting your visit to my blog languish in my spam queue till a day or so ago. I checked it before it had a chance to disappear, but what was Wordpress thinking?

Sanity, by conventional definitions. is generally overrated.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, that's "bitter regrets." I'm afraid to think what Catullus would have done with butter.