The Similes in Catullus 64

Author(s): P. Murgatroyd
Source: Hermes , 1997, 125. Bd., H. 1 (1997), pp. 75-84
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4477179

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Franz Steiner Verlag is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Hermes

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SIMILES IN CATULLUS 64

In the third chapter of his >Figures of Thought in Roman Poetry< G. WIL

highlighted several aspects of the sophisticated technique of Catullan similes (in
particular the way in which he employs the imagery in place of primary state-
ment). It is the purpose of this article to reinforce and extend those observations by
means of a close analysis of all six similes in Catullus 64. Such an investigation
demonstrates that the images are densely suggestive, with every or almost every
word in them doing duty, perform various structural and narrative functions, are
carefully integrated and linked with each other, and evince substantial adaptation
and refinement of modelsl.
The first simile in the poem occurs in the inner story, when Ariadne wakes on
the shore of Dia to see Theseus departing by ship:

quem procul ex alga maestis Minois ocellis, 60

saxea ut effigies bacchantis, prospicit, eheu,
prospicit et magnis curarumfluctuat undis.

The image appears at a high point (of drama and pathos), as is often the case, and
draws attention to it (not least because it is the first simile in the whole poem),
freezing Ariadne and the moment. It enables Catullus to intimate much in a way
that is striking (it conjures up the rather bizarre picture of a statue on a lonely
beach pointing out to sea in the midst of a gale and crashing waves) as well as
terse. Many commentators from MURETUS onwards have remarked on the more
obvious implications here: like a statue Ariadne is rigid, silent, tearless and
motionless, and like a Bacchante she is experiencing wild emotions (cf. 54 and 62)
and has disordered clothing (63ff.). It should also be noted that the comparison to
the statue suggests that Ariadne does not actually have the power to move (her feet
or any other parts of her body), has a set expression and a fixed, unblinking gaze,

I On the characteristics and functions of the simile in general I have found the following
works especially helpful: A. L. KErrH Simile and Metaphor in Greek Poetry from Homer to
Aeschylus (Menasha, Wis., 1914), H. FRAENKEL Die homerischen Gleichnisse (Gottingen, 1921),
S. E. BAssm The Function of the Homeric Simile, TAPhA 52 (1921), 132-47, C. M. BOWRA
Tradition and Design in the Iliad (Oxford, 1930), 114ff., R. HAMPE Die Gleichnisse Homers und
die Bildkunst seiner Zeit (Tiubingen, 1952), D. WEST >Multiple-correspondence Similes in the
Aeneid<, JRS 59 (1969), 40-49 and Virgilian Multiple-correspondence Similes and their Antece-
dents, Philologus 114 (1970), 262-75, D. H. PORTER Violent Juxtaposition in the Similes of the
Iliad, CJ 68 (1972), 11-21, C. MOULTON Similes in the Homeric Poems (Gottingen, 1977), G.
WILLIAMs Figures of Thought in Roman Poetry (New Haven and London, 1980), 45ff., R. 0. A.
M. LYNE Words and the Poet (Oxford, 1989), 63ff., 128ff.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 76 P. MURGATROYD

and is impervious to the wind and the waves and the loss of her clothes at 63ff.,
while bacchantis foreshadows Bacchus' arrival at 251ff. and Ariadne's future
relationship with him, thus hinting at the happy ending in the midst of all the
pathos2. In addition, since the Ariadne that Catullus describes here is depicted on
a coverlet, there is a certain piquancy in saying that a likeness (on the vestis) is like
a likeness (in stone)3.
The next simile, of Theseus killing the Minotaur, comes at 105ff.:

nam velut in summo quatientem bracchia Tauro 105

quercum aut conigeram sudanti cortice pinum
indomitus turbo contorquensflamine robur
eruit (illa procul radicitus exturbata
prona cadit, late quaevis cumque obviafrangens),
sic domito saevum prostravit corpore Theseus 110
nequiquam vanis iactantem cornua ventis.

WILLIAMS4 has pointed out that the image is substituted for description of the
actual fight. Part of the purpose may well be to invest this extraordinary struggle
in the labyrinth with some appropriate mystery, and this also fits with the strategy
of not allowing Theseus to take centre stage or appear in too good a light. But at
the same time this pregnant simile implies a great deal about the characters and the
action at another important point in the story - the Minotaur's great height and
massiveness, its unfeeling nature and rough skin; Theseus' irresistible power,
ferocity and violence5; during combat the tossing of the monster's horns, its
sweating6 and the convulsing of its body7; and at the climax the huge creature
falling, smashing things all around it and lying there helpless, dying and with no

2 Bacchantes (255; cf. 61) andfurebant (254; cf. 54) underline the connection. Cf. R. JENKYNS
Three Classical Poets Sappho, Catullus and Juvenal (London, 1982), 125f., who remarks rather
vaguely (of saxea ... effigies bacchantis): ,,When we come to the arrival of Bacchus and his rout,
we shall find a new significance in this phrase" and Ferguson ad loc. (= p. 200), who says: ,,the
image of the bacchant (v. 61) prepares us for the final arrival of the god and his train."
3 ELLIs and KROLL ad loc. cite parallels for comparisons of girls to statues, but no especial
model suggests itself here, and the detail of a statue of a Maenad in particular seems to have been
Catullus' own (telling) addition.
4Op.cit.n. lp.49.
s These qualities, of course, are primarily relevant to the battle with the Minotaur, but we
be meant to think of them in connection with Theseus' relationship with Ariadne as well (she
figured prominently in the twenty lines prior to 105ff.), and the hero's responsibility for his
father's fall from a height at 241ff. may also be subtly prefigured here.
6 Noted by D. KONSTAN Catullus 64: A Study in its Theme and Style (diss. Columbia
University, 1967), 82.
7 S. G. P. SMALL Catullus A Reader's Guide to the Poems ((New York, 1983), 142 maintains
that the combatants must have wrestled with bare hands, and that could be a correct inference
from contorquens in 107.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The similes in Catullus 64 77

hope of ever getting up again. In addition, Ta

will play on Minotaurus8 and has apt connota
There is a close connection between simile and narrative. This is achieved
partly by means of >transfusion< or >trespass<, i.e. an overflow of vocabulary
whereby terms more readily applicable to the Minotaur (bracchia and sudanti) are
applied to the trees10. There are verbal and syntactical correspondences here as
well: indomitus (107) is echoed by domito (110), and at 105-8 and 1 lOf. there are
parallel subjects (Theseus, the wind), participial phrases referring to the trunk!
body (contorquens ... robur and domito ... corpore), similar main verbs, related
objects (the trees, saevum) and attached to those objects matching participial
phrases (in summo quatientem bracchia Tauro and vanis iactantem cornua ven-
tis). So too the pine on the top of Taurus recalls the pines on the peak of Pelion in
1, turbo is picked up by the wind imagery in 142 and especially 149 (turbo, now of
what faced Theseusl"), and in 173 indomitus and taurus are reapplied, to the
Minotaur.
The comparison of a fallen fighter to a felled tree was firmly in the epic
tradition'2. Of the various examples most probable as a model for Catullus, in
view of extensive affinities with regard to subjects, details and length of the
similes, is Apollonius Rhodius 4.1682-8 (of Cretan Talos brought low by Medea):

aiX2 65 i; irt X ?v Opeaa itXcoptln 5,6 irOeI 5 ici,

Tilv te i0oo1; ntX&KeaatV Ct3 IiJtnXya Xtr6Vte;
VXot6got 8pug6to icaiXufotv, i' 6 Vnt6O viJicti
irtnjtv gi?v npc7na nvadaaetat, bau-?pov airs 1685
ncpuv6iaev taye'taa KaTnptuev-- oye locctiv
aKagaitoIcteiw gi v xtr1ata56v iOp?pevo,
f, ?, 9 , % ,1 , I

iaT?epov &ir a
Catullus adopts
the Latin, so h
the (highly significant) crash of the tree, and puts greater stress on violence and
destruction. While including some extra material, which generally makes for a
sharper picture, Catullus also eliminates matter, ensuring clearer and closer paral-
lelism by doing away with the wood and the woodsmen and making the wind the
sole (and a more strong and active) agent of the collapse.

8 As observed by KONSTAN Ioc. cit. n. 6 and W. CLAUSEN in Vir Bonus Discendi Peritus.
Studies in Celebration of Otto SKUTSCH's Eightieth Birthday ed. N. HORSFALL (London, 1988), 16.
9 Cf. e.g. Eur. IT. 31ff., Sen. Phaed. 168.
10 According to Thes.L.L. and OLD this is the first time that bracchium and sudo are used of
trees. On >trespass< see especially LYNE Op. cit. n. 1 pp. 92ff.
I Winds are elsewhere associated with Theseus at 59, 84, 142, 213 and 239.
12 Cf. Homer II. 4.482ff., 5.560, 13.178ff., 389ff., 14.414ff., 16.482ff., 17.53ff., Ap. Rhod.
3.1375f., 4.1682ff.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 78 P. MURGATROYD

At 239f. a simile highlights and draws out a major turning point in the action,
as Theseus is made to forget his father's instructions to change his sail on his
victorious return from Crete:

haec mandata prius constanti mente tenentem

Thesea ceu pulsae ventorumflamine nubes
aerium nivei montis liquere cacumen. 240

There is not equivalence in every detail here, but multiple correspondence is still
in evidence. Like the clouds, the mandata are insubstantial and are driven away
easily (N.B. the brevity and the plural ventorum) and totally. Ventorumflamine (=
an unseen but powerful force in the background, i.e. Jupiter (cf. 204ff.), who
controls the winds and clouds13) fills a gap in the narrative, but only by implication,
with a suitably cryptic touch'4. The montis ... cacumen is obviously on a par with
Theseus' head; less obviously, but still quite possibly, aeriwn may allude to his tallness,
montis to an imposing physiquel' and niveil6 (and aerium) to a cold nature.
Theseus alone in the poem receives two similes, and successive similes at that,
but the effect is not to elevate him as someone special; rather, this second image in
recalling the first inverts and undermines it. The active hero of 105ff., who brings
about the glorious death of his enemy and in his pre-eminence is likened to a
vigorous wind on a mountain top, becomes here passive, and goes on to cause the
inglorious death of his own father, and is himself likened to a (static, inert) mountain,
while Jupiter, who so easily manipulates Theseus, is the dominant one and is
represented by the winds on the peak. There are other noteworthy links with the
surrounding narrative: the dispelling winds here (in connection with his punishment)
bring to mind the winds dispelling his promises to Ariadne in 59 and 142; and the
clouds leaving the mountain top in 240 are immediately picked up at 241ff. by
Aegeus leaving the rocky height in his leap to his death on seeing the unchanged sail.
Scholars have identified the model as Homer Iliad 5.522ff.:

To'x 6 Aiavte 81) Kac 'O6VC0x 5ei icat Ato i'n8

o6rpUvov Aavaovs n0otX ,?ev- oi &? ica't aczi'TO 520
oIke Oias Tpov IMs68i6taav oVtke tocag,
ass p?tisVoV v EanV 'otK6xts, ai5re Kpovtov
Vivetii5 eatioev en axpoi6Xoto-tv 0psoo1v
a&p?jiag, 6qpp s Pa&W9 at 'vo0 Bop?ao ica' `XXcov
CaXpetCov a"vegcov, 0o re v*?pea aictoev-ra 525
1vVOtoPv Xvyup 5 acntSv&atv devrEg-

13 See e.g. Homer Iliad 5.522f., 16.298, Catullus 4.20f., Ovid Met. 2.307ff., 3.300, and cf.
SMALL Op. cit. n. 7 p. 145.
4 There also seems to be point in applying wind imagery to a man sailing.
Is Cf. e.g. Virgil Aen. 12.701ff.
16 Cf e.g. Ovid Ex P. 3.4.33f.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The similes in Catullus 64 79

Clearly the Homeric reminiscence invests this fa

but more subtly it contributes as well to the def
contrast in context (in Homer the Greeks steadfastly withstand; in Catullus
Theseus is quite unable to withstand). Catullus has also considerably reduced the
length of the image, has completely reversed the picture in the simile (his clouds
are dispersed) and does not explicitly mention Zeus/Jupiter (thereby getting the
idea of a hidden power at work).
At 269ff. Catullus, now in the outer story, applies a lengthy simile to the
departure of the human guests from Peleus' palace prior to the arrival of the gods:

hic, qualis flatu placidum mare matutino

horrificans zephyrus proclivas incitat undas, 270
Aurora exoriente vagi sub limina Solis,
quae tarde primum clementiflamine pulsae
procedunt leviterque sonant plangore cachinni,
post vento crescente magis magis increbescunt,
purpureaque procul nantes ab luce refulgent: 275
sic tum vestibuli linquentes regia tecta
ad se quisque vago passim pede discedebant.

By means of the imagery Catullus takes an event which is in itself not very
interesting and converts it into a poetic showpiece17. The adding, narrative role of
the simile means that pedestrian description is replaced by a tableau that is
picturesque and draws one in as more and more parallels become clear. 269ff.
depict above all the various stages of the guests' movement, but also catch other
aspects of their exodus. First, in 269, placidum implies no discernible motion
(while mare intimates very large numbers18). Then, in 270, some agitation starts
up (perhaps with a bobbing of heads) and a move forwards begins. During this
advance, which is naturally slow at first (272), the guests' (awed19) silence gives
way to sounds of joy, light but continuous ripples of laughter (cachinni). By 274
the humans are streaming off in ever larger and more numerous groups, wave after
wave of them over a broad front. Finally, in 275, with procul they are far off 0 (and
there is also a suggestion in that line of sunlight reflected from metal brooches
etc.). In addition, matutino (269) and 271 reflect the time of day in Thessaly (cf.
31); 271 may also prefigure the gods and goddesses in their divine world just
beginning to set out for Peleus' home; and zepyhrus perhaps stands for the unseen
but still present impulse to depart, strengthening as the humans move off.

17 This point is made by H. P. SYNDIKUS Catull: Eine Interpretation. Zweiter Teil: Die groBen
Gedichte (61-68) (Darmstadt, 1990), 170.
18 Cf. tota.../Thessalia (32f.) and 35ff.
19 Cf. 267f.
20 So ELLIs ad loc.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 80 P. MURGATROYD

Once more there is the close association between simile and narrative, thanks
to vagus in 271 and 277, procedo/discedo in 273 and 277, allusion to palaces and
their entrances in 271 and 276, and the >trespass< in 273 (cachinni). 269-75 also
perform structural functions. By means of this lengthy imagery Catullus dwells at
267-77 on the humans' departure from the regia tecta (with stress on the sea)
shortly after the end (at 264) of the inset story, just as at 31-42 he had lingered on
their arrival at the palace and abandonment of their homes and fields (with the
emphasis on land) shortly before the start of the tale of Theseus and Ariadne (at
52). The above lines help smooth the transition to the outer story too, by echoes of
earlier words and motifs - flatu in 269 and flamine in 272 (cf. efflabant, 263),
horrificans in 270 (cf. horribili, 264), the deities in 271 (cf. 251ff.), sonant in 273
(cf. raucisonos, 263) and plangore in 273 (cf. plangebant, 261)21. At the same
time the lines also ease the progression to the divine guests at 278: all the water in
the simile is picked up by the river god of 285, the west wind figures in 270 and
282, undas (at the end of the line) occurs in 270 and 281, the divinities in 271 are
precursors to those at 278ff., and things laugh in 273 and 284.
For Catullus' source here commentators point to Homer Iliad 4.422ff., an
extended simile applied to the movement of Greeks which contains various
common details and expresssions:

c&5 6' 6O ?v atiytaMC no,XinXe?i iVi1a tMAXao-q;

6pvuli Eiaaaiutepov Zepu5pou)i5mo 1<vfaavto;-
nOvrqo Rev ce irp6a K0opuaaeatn, avrap enEvta
%?p(13 p7VV?VOVa"aXa Pp?R?1e, agpt a? X
aKpa; 425
KI)pOV ?0V Koopx
&OS6 ? aaoaLrepat Aavaciv icivuvto padXayye;
VCsX Aw? iOXsV6@v6 Kcxue ' ota? O-vicaatog
i1ye0i6' 0 " aXot dicijv 'taav, oi8? K? paia
t6oaaov kaov ?aeafu ?Xovi ?V GTati tv av81v, 430
0tyi 86tto1?e; ajgdavtopa;s

For a change Catullus has expanded his model, adding items for increased
vividness and parallelism, and introducing the progressive stages of motion. He
has changed the context as well, from war to peace, from grimly silent warriors
going into battle to gaily laughing guests going away to their homes. To suit the
new context, Catullus has made his simile quieter and brighter and less violent and
intense22. He has also improved the clarity of correspondence in one respect23:

21 See further JENKYNS Op. cit. n. 2 p. 137.

22 F. KLINGNER Studien zur griechischen und r6mischen Literatur (Zurich and Stuttgart,
1964), 221 has noted some of these changes.
23 For such improvement cf. D. WEST Philologus 114 (1970), 264 and 267.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The similes in Catullus 64 81

Homer compares silent masses of soldiers to noisy waves; Catullus keeps the
noise, but with cachinni makes it easy for the reader to supply a point of
equivalence in the guests' behaviour24.
In the prophetic song of the Fates during their description of Achilles killing
Trojans the hero is likened to a reaper at 353ff.:

namque velut densas praecerpens messor aristas

sole sub ardentiflaventia demetit arva,
Troiugenum infesto prosternet corpora ferro. 355

The imagery adds much to the rather bare 355. One pictures very large numbers
(N.B. densas and the plural arva) of blond Trojans helpless and unresisting as they
are brought down and then lying motionless and unable to get up ever again, while
Achilles towers pre-eminent among the indiscriminate mass, powerful and untir-
ing as he cuts a swathe through the enemy. Inferences can also be drawn about
Achilles' emotional state, that like the reaper he is businesslike and determined,
with no pity or regard at all for what he cuts down. As well as fitting with combat
during the daytime, sole sub ardenti implies strength and relentlessness (in doing
so much work despite the heat).
The simile means that still more lines are devoted to slaughter, and through it
Catullus achieves jarring juxtaposition (war and peace; reaping and killing; abun-
dance and fertility; death and devastation), which by highlighting opposites
increases our sense of the destructiveness and waste of war25. In addition, the
agricultural activity here looks back to the agricultural inactivity in the first part of
the Peleus and Thetis story at 38ff.
As many scholars have remarked, Catullus clearly had in mind Homer Iliad
11.67ff, which also concerns heroes fighting in the Trojan War:

o, , iTle F-avo (" , a, - 9 , . *.t-t

Oygov PXw5vwxtv av6po caKapo; Kcai apoupav
ntup(ov i Kpt65ov- ta ?' patyara tappea tint?t-
65; Tp&os; ica % 'AXatot e azXXfXotat i5opOVts; 70
6ioiiv, oVO ??pot jivoovi o oio (Po' 1o.

The Iliadic flavour is appropriate, but again Catullus does much more than simply
reproduce Homer. Commentators26 have observed that sole sub ardenti and
flaventia give colour to Catullus' picture. More importantly, he heightens the
violence and destruction, since his reaper clears whole fields of corn, and, whereas

24 ELLIS, FORDYCE and QUINN ad loc. also cite Hom. II. 7.63f. as a possible influence, and
Catullus may have taken from there the ripple of the west wind on the sea. If so, in addition to the
contaminatio, Catullus' reference to brightness inverts Homer's ekXvEt & TE in6vro;.
25 On this technique of antithetical juxtaposition see PORTER art. cit. n. 1 and LYNE Op. cit. n.
1 pp. 135ff.
26 See especially FORDYCE, and cf. also KROLL.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 82 P. MURGATROYD

Homer has none, two verbs in the Latin denote the action of mowing down. So too
by eliminating the other labourers (and the rich man) Catullus ensures that
Achilles is unrivalled and the single reaper stands out starkly, a lone figure cutting
away in yellow fields under the bright sun, whose isolation is underlined by the
contrast with the plurality of reapers in Homer.
At 368ff. near the end of their song the Fates predict the sacrifice of Polyxena
at the tomb of Achilles:

alta Polyxenia madefient caede sepulcra;

quae, velut ancipiti succumbens victimaferro,
proiciet truncum summisso poplite corpus. 370

Here too a high point of drama and pathos is caught and held for us to feel i
by means of a simile, one which adds much about the event itself and the
participants' state and the general atmosphere, and which is succinctly and elo-
quently condemnatory. Like the victima, Polyxena, helpless in the face of superior
numbers and strength27, is dealt a killing blow by a weapon in a form of ritual and
collapses. It is an easy inference that the Greeks regarded Polyxena as not human,
just there to be slaughtered, not meriting regret or regard at all, and that the act was
carried out amid quiet, solemnity and even reverence. The contrast between the
everyday, non-emotive sacrifice of an animal and the extraordinary and shocking
killing of a princess underlines the Greeks' matter-of-fact indifference and the
way in which they demote her to the level of some (not even specified) beast; and
the startling juxtaposition of normal and abnormal slaughter intimates a hideous
perversion of a religious rite28.
No antecedents have been suggested by critics, but it appears that once more
Homer was the starting point. Rather like our passage is Iliad 17.520ff., of the
death of Aretus at the hands of Achilles' charioteer Automedon29:

&5 6 &oz av o,ibv cXv nXsicuv ait'iiog advip, 520

Kolya; 061im?tv icKpaov I'o6 a&ypacnXoto,
va tadgj &ta& iaav, O 6 npoiop5v ?pi P v,
(6; ap o ye npOi5Op5OV nE?aev UitmO;.

As well as contracting his model and pointedly changing the reference from just
another warrior slain in battle, Catullus with victima makes it clear that he has in

27 No struggle is mentioned, and succumbo can also mean ,,yield, give in" (OLD s.v. 3), so
there may be a hint of submission in the participle.
28 Such disapproval here (on the part of Catullus rather than the Fates) fits with the stark
horror of 370 (cf. the attitude at Lucr. 1.83ff. and Ovid Met. 13.449ff.). The falling victim is taken
up shortly afterwards in 389.
29 Similar are Od. 4.535, 11.411 and 413ff., but they do not mention the weapon, the leap
forward or the fall. Note that also in common with Catullus 64.369f. the image in the Iliad is
applied to the death of a Trojan and has a link with Achilles.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The similes in Catullus 64 83

mind ritual killing with all the implications of that as noted above. Homer's
slaughtering man has disappeared, and the focus is now on the victim and the
weapon (tellingly juxtaposed in 369). The victima in Catullus is denoted by a
single word and lacks the detail and specificity of Homer's animal, which further
reflects the colourlessness and unimportance of Polyxena in the eyes of the
Greeks.
It remains to consider the intricately ordered network of links between these
six similes30. All of them contain or have in the immediate vicinity one or more
compounds involving pro: prospicit (6 1f.), prostravit (110), prospectum (241, cf.
6 If.), proclivas and procedunt (270, 273), prosternet (355; cf. 110) and proiciet
(370). Most of the images tie in with major motifs of the poem: mountains figure
at 105 and 240; water at 269ff.; wind at 107,239 and 269ff.; and colour/brightness
at 240, 271, 275 and 35431.
There are three similes in the inner story and three in the outer one. The images
in the inset tale are connected with those in the framing narrative. The first and last
comparisons (61 and 369) are the shortest in the poem (occupying less than a line
each) and are the only ones concerned with heroines (in both instances maltreated
by heroes). The similes at 105ff. and 269ff. are both long, involve wind and
contain procul and flamen. 105ff. are also related to 353ff.: the introductions are
similar (nam velut and namque velut), and in each case a Greek hero lays low the
enemy (with prostravit corpore in 110 recalled by prosternet corpora in 355).
Likewise the successive images at 239f. and 269ff. refer to leaving, mention
winds and have in common pulsusflamine, ventus and linquo.
The similes in the Theseus and Ariadne narrative are bound to each other as
well. All three of them centre around one of the protagonists at a vital moment.
The saxea effigies in 61 is followed by (rocky) mountains in 105 and 240, and the
indomitus turbo in 107 calls to mind the (wild) bacchant in 61. Both 105ff. and
239f. occur in flashbacks, involve winds and lofty tops of mountains and contain
flamine. There is patterning too: two shorter images with unhappy and inglorious
associations frame the long and triumphant 105ff.; and there is a progression from
the unmoving statue to movement, with the tree which is uprooted by the wind and
falls procul giving way to the clouds which are propelled still further by the wind.
The three comparisons in the Peleus and Thetis story are also linked to one
another. Common to 269ff. and 353f. are brightness, sol and multiplicity (of

30 Even if some of my suggestions do not convince, the connections are still too extensive for
mere coincidence. On such organization of similes see MOULTON Op. cit. n. 1 chaps. 1 and 2, and
for the careful structuring of Catullus 64 see e.g. J. C. BRAMBLE >Structure and Ambiguity in
Catullus LXIV<, PCPhS 16 (1970), 22ff. and SYNDIKUS Op. cit. n. 17 pp. 107ff.
31 Elsewhere Catullus has mountains in 1, 96, 126, 178, 244, 252, 278, 281, 297, 300 and
390;waterin2, 3,6,7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 30,52,58etc.; windin9, 12,59, 84,90, 142,
164-6, 213 and 282 (cf. also 149); and colour/brightness in 5, 7, 13, 14, 16, 18, 31, 44, 45, 48, 49,
63, 65 etc.

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 84 P. MURGATROYD

waves and ears of corn). Both 353f. and 369 appear in a flashforward (the
prophecy of the Fates), have a connection with Achilles and concem the slaughter
without second thoughts of helpless Trojans; and there are verbal similarities
(introductory velut; ferro; prosterno/proicio corpus). Again there is considered
organization: with regard to length the similes form a tricolon diminuendo; there
is a narrowing of focus - from the sea to the fields worked by the reaper to the lone
victim; and there is an intensification of mood and impact (the attractive seascape
and peaceful departure of guests; hard work in the sun and the grim killing of
Trojan warriors; the collapse of the victima and the horrifying slaughter of the
princess).

Hamilton, Canada P. MURGATROYD

This content downloaded from

115.27.206.46 on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:57:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms