the Greater Nomadic Council

A Poem By Catullus

Last winter, I attended a lecture about hospitality poems—invitations to drink, eat, and be merry. The lecturer (whose name I forget) briefly traced the history of this sub-genre, beginning with a poem from Catullus, a poem which I reencountered today while studying. It's a funny, charming, and ultimately touching poem, so I thought I'd attempt to translate and share. There are translations available for free online, but since they don't seem any better than what I can do, I want to try my hand at it:

cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me
paucis, si tibi di fauent, diebus,
si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam
cenam, non sine candida puella
et uino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.
haec si, inquam, attuleris, uenuste noster,
cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli
plenus sacculus est aranearum.
sed contra accipies meros amores
seu quid suauius elegantiusue est:
nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae
donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque,
quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis,
totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

At my home, in a few days, you will,
If the gods favor you, dine well, Fabullus.
But only if you bring a good and great
Feast, not forgetting the lovely girl,
Wine, salt, and laughter. If, I say,
You bring these things, my charming friend,
You will eat well; for your Catullus
Has a purse full of only cobwebs.
But in return you shall receive pure passion
Or a thing sweeter yet and more elegant:
For I will give you perfume which
Venus and Cupid gave my love
And when its scent you smell, you will beseech
The gods to make you nothing, Fabullus, but nose.

There are several things that make this such a successful poem. First, and most obviously, the humor. The tone is light-hearted and the poem itself quite witty. The jokes, furthermore, are better in Latin because of the way Catullus separates the adjectives from the nous that are the punch-line. For example, the first joke, that Fabullus must supply the meal, gains force from the fact that meal (cenam) is enjambed; we expect Catullus to suggest that Fabullus bring something standard like wine. Next, the line "plenus sacculus est areanarum" reads literally, "full little purse is of cobwebs." Placing "plenus" at the beginning of the line increases the tension by letting us know that his purse is full of something far earlier than we know that it is full "of cobwebs" (areanarum). Likewise, the last line separates "totum" (all) from "nasum" (nose) while adding yet another delay through the addition of Fabullus's name right before the last word. I tried to capture this, but the best you can do in English is to hold the joke to the end of the line or enjamb it. You can't make the reader's expectation come so much earlier than the payoff. Another aspect of this poem that I particularly enjoy is the turn in the last four lines. Catullus moves from joking about poverty and the expectations of hospitality to offering his guest something far greater, a present from the gods of love that, while divine, will overwhelm Fabullus's senses, a mixing of the sensual and the spiritual that mirrors the satisfying communion found in a meal with friends.