Catullus 1 is a poem by Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (– BCE) written in hendecasyllabic meter, a common form in his poetry.

Although it was traditionally arranged first among his poems, though it was not necessarily the first poem that he wrote. It is dedicated to Cornelius Nepos, a historian and minor poet, though some consider Catullus's praise of Cornelius's history of the Italians to have been sarcastic.

The poem alternates between humility and a self-confident manner; Catullus calls his poetry "little" and "trifles", but asks that it remain for more than one age. This understatement is likely deliberate; Catullus knows very well the quality of his poetry, and also the provocative form it has. He also calls his work "new"; the poems are recently made and therefore new, but they are also new as some of the first examples of Neoteric poetry in the Latin language.

Text

Translations

Earliest translation in English can be found in the anonymous novel The Adventures of Catullus, and History of his Amours With Lesbia. Intermixt With Translations of his Choicest Poems. By Several Hands. Done From the French (London: printed for J. Chantry, 1707), the translation from French of galant novel by Jean de La Chapelle «Amours de Catulle» (1680):

Notes

1. "To unfold the entire age in three papyrus rolls" can be less literally rendered as "To give an account of all recorded history in three volumes", and refers to Cornelius Nepos' Chronica ("Annals"), an exhaustive three-volume history of the Greco-Roman world.

2. O does not appear in any extant manuscripts, but is supplied by modern editors on the assumption that it was in the original, based on context and metrical concerns.

3. The "patron maiden" may be either Minerva or one of the Muses.

Bibliography

References

External links

• Catullus 1 for Catullus 1 translated into 13 languages.