1. Like most of the recent students of this poem, I believe that c.68 is to be thought of as a unit, though it may be that its two parts, traditionally called 68a (1-40) and 68b (41-160), relate to each other in the same way as do cc.65 and 66. The question of whether it is actually one poem or two connected poems is not that crucial, though Skinner 1972 makes a good case for regarding 68a as "a finished artistic product" (509). The evidence of the manuscripts is quite clear on the fact that the two parts of the poem have different addressees, Mallius and Allius respectively (Most 1981, 116-17; Tuplin 1981, 113-14).

2. Wiseman 1987, 324-34, provides an excellent treatment of the growing pretensions of this part of Italy in Catullus' time.

3. On the status of literature and poetry in the late Republic, see Quinn 1982, 128-30, 136-39.

4. On the complicated relation of the Roman cultural elite to Greek culture, see Balsdon 1979, 30-58, Veyne 1979, and Gruen 1992.

5. On the allusion to the Odyssey , see Conte 1986, 32-39. Carrié 1993, 113, points out that epitaphs of soldiers often mention brothers, and that pacts between brothers to see to each other's funeral rites are quite common.

6. Quinn 1970, 440. As Quinn suggests (441), the words ''ave atque vale" may have been part of the traditional ceremony (compare Aen. 11.97-98, salve aeternum mihi . . . aeternumque vale.)

7. Celan 1970, 143.

8. Quinn 1970, 441.

9. Toohey 1984 (especially 9-11) describes the role of Trojan genealogies at Rome and the racial prejudice or Hellenophobia that may have motivated it.

10. Possibly, fluctuat in this context recalls the Greek kuma (wave), derived from the verb meaning "to conceive" or "to be pregnant." But if Catullus' mind is figured as a womb, then fluctuat could also imply the menstrual flow that would equally prevent conception. "Giving birth" was a fairly common metaphor for artistic creation; see OLD s.v. pario , 4.

11. Ellis 1889 ad loc suggests that there is an allusion to Pindar, frag. 273 Bergk, where poets are the keepers of the golden apples of the Muses.

12. Possibly, this simile refers to a passage from Callimachus' story of Acontius and Cydippe in the Aetia , though not enough is known of that part of the Aetia to allow for more than speculation. See Daly 1952.

13. "Proverbium est, quod et illa incerti et levis animi est et plerumque in gremio posita, cum in oblivionem venerunt exsurgentium, procidunt" (Festus 1165, quoted by Kroll 1929, 199).

14. Catullus himself provides a beautiful picture of the moment of transition from mother to lover at c.64.86-93, and a more cynical view in the lock of Berenice's insinuation that the parents are fooled by the bride's false tears in c.66.15-16.

15. Witke 1968, 20-24, has a good treatment of the final six lines of this poem in relation to the theme of renewed life.

16. Cicero discusses conflicts of duties and how to resolve them in De Officiis 1.59; see also Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 5.13. For an extended treatment of the moral significance of the blush for the Romans, see Seneca, Ep. 11, where after praising Pompey because "numquam non coram pluribus rubuit" (4), Seneca goes on to remark that the one thing actors cannot do at will is blush (ruborem sibi exprimere non possunt, 7). In a scene from Terence's Adelphoe , a father confronting his son with the latter's misdeed remarks in an aside "erubuit: salva res est" (643). Catullus himself, trying to shame the woman who has stolen his writing tablets, hopes that his convicium will squeeze a blush from her iron face (ruborem / ferreo canis exprimamus ore, c.42.16-17). The most famous and highly charged blush in Roman literature is, of course, Lavinia's at Aen. 12.64-69.

17. In c.50 Catullus translates one of Sappho's most famous poems (31 LP), much of which describes the physical effects on the lover of the sight of the beloved. He then appends to the Sappho poem a moralizing stanza (probably tongue-in-cheek) on otium , which reinterprets the physical symptoms of love as the restlessness caused by excessive leisure (otio exsultas nimiumque gestis, 14)

18. The irony of these lines has been a problem for those who think that this poem simply reflects Catullus' own bereavement. Kidd 1970, for instance, is forced to read the lines as a statement, not a question, thus: "Besides, in your case, your grief was not just for the loss of a husband: the important factor was the sad parting for a beloved brother" (42). Much of the critical comment on this poem has been concerned with showing how Catullus has found aspects of his own experience in the Callimachean poem. Signs of Catullus' investment in the subject matter have usually been detected in the changes in the emphasis or affect of the original made by Catullus in his translation; Putnam 1960 is a sensitive example of this line of criticism.

19. Sinon, in Aeneid 2, is the great figure of Greek mendacity in Roman literature. Cicero speaks of the "ingenia ad fallendum parata" of the Greeks ( ad Q. Fr. 1.2.4), and, more particularly, he identifies Alexandria, the place from which come the plots of the mimes, as the source of all trickery and deceit.

20. The reading of manuscript V at line 12 was "semper maesta tua carmina morte tegam ," defended by Ellis 1889, 354-56, as meaning "I will keep close or veil in silence." This reading would obviate the problem that Catullus does not seem to have been true to his word, but see the arguments against it in Clausen 1970, 93, note 11. Wiseman 1969, 17-18, and Block 1984, 50-51, argue that Catullus fulfills his promise insofar as all of the remaining poems are in elegiacs, the meter of mourning.

21. Green 1990, 405. On displacement in Alexandrian literature, see Selden, forthcoming.

22. Catullus' gremium is a direct translation of Callimachus' kolpous (frag. 110.56 Pfeiffer).

23. Compare Vergil, Georgic 4, 287-88: "Qua Pellaei gens fortunata Canopi / accolit effuso stagnantem flumine Nilum." Catullus' incola makes a stronger emphasis on the fact that the Ptolemies are not Egyptians than Callimachus' naietis (58).

24. Plutarch, Mor. 11a, quoted in Green 1990, 82.

25. As Selden 1992 points out, this poem in which Catullus claims that he is unable to write poetry is itself full of poetic figures.

26. Sarkissian 1983 and Hubbard 1984 have interesting discussions of this poem in its entirety, both focusing on Catullus' problematization of the relation between art and personal experience. Sarkissian argues that in c.68 Catullus explores "the conflict between the world a poet can create in his art and the world in which he must live" (39), and that this conflict is related to another between the desperate attempt to cling to what little is left of the relationship with Lesbia and a realization that it is over. A very similar, if more theoretically sophisticated, approach is taken by Hubbard, for whom "the author's textual articulation of personal experience destabilizes itself into two antagonistic patterns of assertion—a 'mystified' self, which sublimates the author's fantasies and anxieties directly into the poetic construct, and a 'demystified' self which reconsiders experience and feeling through rational deliberation" (43).

The nature of Mallius' request has been the subject of some controversy revolving around the meaning ofthe expression "munera . . . et Musarum . . . et Veneris" (12). Some have argued that we have a hendiadys, meaning "love poetry," others that learned poetry is being distinguished from erotic, and a third group that Catullus is being asked to supply Mallius with a woman, or even his own sexual favors. For a survey of the views on this problem, see Sarkissian 1983, 46-47, note 15. In spite of "tibi . . . utriusque petenti" (39), I do not think that Mallius has requested two specific and different kinds of things, but rather that he has two kinds of needs, both of which can be fulfilled by a love poem. Hubbard 1984, 42, has some interesting thoughts on the fact that, in spite of this recusatio , Catullus produces a poem about love.

27. The two excuses are usually explained as referring to the "munera Musarum" and the "munera Veneris" (10) respectively.

28. I have changed Mynors's Mani to Malli . Manuscript V has Mali here.

29. Fordyce 1961, 347, argues that the quod clause is a regular feature of Latin epistolary style and introduces an indirect quotation; this requires the correction Catullo and the subjunctive tepefactet for V's unmetrical tepefacit . The two alternatives and their respective problems are well described in Fordyce's note.

30. Carpitur (35) in the passive is more likely to convey the erosion of life (aetas) than the full enjoyment of it, so when Catullus says of Rome "illic mea carpitur aetas," he expresses an ambivalent attitude to this "home."

31. Wiseman 1987, 331.

32. Wiseman 1987, 333-34, argues that Catullus' family may have been expected by the coloni to donate the bridge. Inscriptions from about this time mention Valerii who had been involved in erecting public buildings.

33. On the political aspects of this poem, and especially the significance of the phrase "sexagenarios de ponte deicere," see Cenerini 1989.

34. The text in line 32 is as emended by Voss. the manuscripts have the meaningless "Brixia chinea suppositum specula."

35. Mynors 1967 prints Lachmann's corruerint for the cur iterent of manuscript V, according to which line 93 would mean "give the stars cause to repreat 'Would that I might become a royal lock.'"

36. Baker 1960.

37. Playing with the very different senses of the verb fero in detulerat (108) and ferunt (109), Catullus brings the emotional and the literary into an ironic juxtaposition.

38. Tuplin 1981, 125-31, argues that Catullus' source for the barathrum simile is Euphorion's Chiliades .