Article HOOPER - in Defence of Catullus's Dirty Sparrow - G&R 32 (1985)

In Defence of Catullus' Dirty Sparrow
Author(s): Richard W. Hooper

Source: Greece & Rome, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Oct., 1985), pp. 162-178
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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Greece & Rome, Vol. XXXII, No. 2, October 1985
IN DEFENCE OF CATULLUS' DIRTY SPARROW
By RICHARD W. HOOPER
Poliziano's theory that the sparrow of Lesbia in Catullus 2 and 3 is none

other than the phallus of the poet has not fared well in recent years.'
H. D. Jocelyn has mounted a spirited attack against it, taking most
effective aim against the arguments of E. N. Genovese and G.
Giangrande, whose articles, as he points out, 'seem to have no
nineteenth or twentieth-century predecessors'.2 This attack has been
facilitated by the tendency of both Genovese and Giangrande to dilute
their arguments with extravagant claims. Thus Genovese would have
the passer stand not only for the poet's phallus, but for an actual pet
of Lesbia, a fascinum charm around her neck (with bells on it!), and
a human rival, possibly named Passer, as well.3 Similarly, Giangrande
spends too much of his time attempting to attach poem 2b to 2 by
means of a tortuous interpretation of the Atalanta myth, just as he
develops a convoluted argument about the tension between topoi of
Totenklage um Tiere and impotence at the end of 3.4 Even Jocelyn gets
too far away from the poems themselves with detailed examinations
of masturbation and fellatio among the ancients (pp. 429-33) and a
careful footnote on the missionary position (pp. 433 n. 65). There are
only two ways to establish the probability of an obscene allegorical
interpretation of Catullus 2 and 3: to examine the usage of passer in
the poems themselves, and to see whether Catullus' imitators in
antiquity - especially Martial5 - were aware of and exploited Catullus'
double entendre. In defending Poliziano's theory, this paper will argue
these two points in more detail than they have been treated in the past.
In considering Catullus 2 and 3 commentators have ignored what
should be an important fact: these are the first poems preserved in
antiquity specifically about a sparrow. Certainly laments over dead pets
had become a Hellenistic topos,6 but those preserved are about locusts,
grasshoppers, rabbits, nightingales, partridges, and other pets - but
never about sparrows, nor indeed have any actual inscriptions to birds
or insects been found. Eric Havelock seems to have sensed something
amiss with the picture of a sparrow as a pet, dead or otherwise, when
he said, '... that grubby little bird belongs to the backyard, not to
the boudoir. Lesbia's playmate was both tender, precious and pathetic.'
C. J. Fordyce similarly called the sparrow 'not only notoriously dowdy
and stiff-feathered' but also 'practically untrainable', having 'none of
the qualities of a pet'.' I know of no evidence prior to Catullus that
the Romans or anyone else tried keeping these wild birds as pets.8
Even assuming this is a real sparrow, it acts in a particularly
IN DEFENCE OF CATULLUS' DIRTY SPARROW 163
un-sparrow-like way. The picture at 2.2-4 is, f

quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare adpetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus.
E. T. Merrill in his commentary (Cambridge, 1893) gives the only

possible literal interpretation of these lines:
pressing the sparrow to her bosom with one hand,
she holds him confined while teasing him with,
and provoking him to peck at the extended forefinger of the other hand.
I have myself enjoyed the company of a pet parrot named Epaminondas

for thirteen years, and I can assure the reader that although he is far
more intelligent than any small-brained, wild field bird, and consider-
ably more used to humans, he would never put up with being hugged
to my bosom as I bopped him playfully on the beak. Furthermore, at
3.8-10 we are told that the sparrow simultaneously stays on his mistress'
lap and leaps about hither and thither, peeping all the way. Apparently
Lesbia's lap was as ample as her hospitality.
The inevitable response to such nit-picking as this is to say that, of
course, a poem is not meant to be a photograph, and that Catullus is
aiming at images and symbols of his deep affection for Lesbia, not at
realism. Even so, if Catullus has chosen to paint a real picture, then
why has he settled upon the specific and unusual image of a sparrow?
Why not a nightingale, or a locust, or a lap dog? If the only answer
is that Catullus wrote about a sparrow because Clodia owned one, then
criticism has a right to ask why the details in the poems are not as
realistic as the motivation.
The connotations of 'sparrow' are well known. Even in ancient
Egyptian hieroglyphics the determinative for 'little, evil, bad' was
gerau, the sparrow.9 It is of course sparrows who pull Aphrodite's
chariot in Sappho 191 (Page), 9-10, where they are called KAot with
seeming incongruity by the poetess. This picture was so familiar that
Apuleius could burlesque it at Met. 6.6, where the chariot is borne
this time by four doves (columbae) and followed by a crowd of chattering
passeres who 'frolic' (lasciviunt) behind the chariot. Sparrows and doves
were frequently associated, as, for instance, at Pliny Nat. Hist.
10.52.107: columbae et turtures octonis annis vivunt. contra passeri
minimum vitae, cui salacitas par. In addition to such circumstantial
evidence for the general salaciousness of sparrows, Festus (p. 410
Lindsay) provides straightforward testimony for the sparrow's con-
nection with the meaning phallus: strutheum in mimis praecipue vocant
obscenam partem virilem, a salacitate videlicet passeris, qui Graece
orpovOe dicitur.10
164 IN DEFENCE OF CATULLUS' DIRTY SPARROW
The fact that these poems could function

have an allegorical level - should not be thou
Niall Rudd has demonstrated that the bridg
17 has been strangely personified - he calls i
- in order to bring unity to the poem by co
of the rickity bridge and the stupid munic
throw off it. S. L. Richardson has suggested,
the mullets in Catullus 15.18-19 are actually euphemisms for the
phallus of the poet. P. G. Maxwell-Stuart similarly interprets the book
roll fondled by Straton's boyfriend in Anth. Pal. 12.208.1 Within the
sparrow poems themselves, and still denying any special significance
for passer, even Jocelyn admits the sexually charged atmosphere of
such words as sinus, noscere, and devorare, to which of course should
be added Catullus' own use ofgremium at 45.1-2 and especially 67.30.12
Having established the fact that passer did have sexual overtones
and could take on the meaning of phallus, and that a poem - especially
one by Catullus - that allowed its vocabulary to function allegorically
would not be an oddity, we have still to see how an obscene interpreta-
tion of passer would operate within poems 2 and 3. It is, however,
at precisely this point that a value judgement becomes necessary. Are
we to join the traditionalists and speak of 'the exquisite grace of the
two sparrow-songs of Catullus' and say that 'equal artlessness of spirit
marks his grief over the sparrow, lamented because it was her pet, but
also because he felt the pitifulness of beauty dead', or do we ask instead,
Quid denique frigidius eo Tecum ludere sicut ipse possem et quae sequuntur si haec
simpliciter et ad litteram, ut loquuntur, intelligi debeant?13
I naturally tend towards the second view and feel that the poems, if
taken literally, offer a skillful but rather tired arrangement of traditional
Hellenistic themes, made mildly amusing by an ironic sense of
exaggeration.14 What new meaning, then, do the poems take on if the
passer can also stand for the poet's phallus?
Starting with 2, we find that the obscene allegory renders the poem's
imagery more complex, amusing, and sophisticated, and that its other-
wise irritating inconsistencies begin to make sense. While the sexual
picture which thus emerges from 2.2-4 never approaches vulgarity
(for it is never openly expressed), the connection between 3-4 and
9-10 is now obvious and, to anticipate a bit, the seeming inconsistency
of movement in place at 3.8-10 is removed. The poem becomes an
intimate metaphor rather than a precious conceit.
What Catullus is getting at in 2.9-13 requires special attention. The
basic meaning has to be that he wished masturbation were as pleasant
as sexual intercourse with Lesbia. That interpret

too rough for most commentators to handle,s1 a
mood from possem to est as well as the seeming
to the Atalanta myth have caused serious proble
change does not work grammatically, and the re
who after all supposedly did not want to lose t
would not have welcomed the golden apples, see
context of the passage. It certainly does not mak
that I could play with the sparrow just as Lesbia does! That's as
welcome as the hateful apples were to Atalanta!'
The easiest way to get rid of both the mood change and the difficult
allusion to Atalanta is to print lines 11-13 as a separate poem.16 I
would prefer to accept Voss's emendation at 2.9 of posse for possem,
which Kenneth Quinn called 'a brilliant effort to weld 1-10 to 11-13',
but 'rather too good to be true'." Furthermore, the sense of the Atalanta
reference should cause no particular problem if we follow Merrill in
recalling the interesting psychological twist which Ovid put on the
Atalanta story in Met. 10.560-680. In that version the maiden is
depicted as falling in love with Hippomenes against her will, and thus
secretly wishing his victory:
o quotiens, cum iam posset transire, morata est

spectatosque diu vultus invita reliquit! (661-662).
It fits the ironic tone of the whole poem for Catullus to imply that
Atalanta wanted to be caught and that she welcomed the sight of the
tricky apples.18 The passage would then mean: 'To be able to play
with myself as skillfully as Lesbia does is an idea as welcome to me
as, in reality (this, I take it, being the sense of ferunt), Hippomenes'
golden apple was to Atalanta.' I would agree with Jocelyn that Voss
went too far in further proposing an obscene sense to malum.19
The third poem of Catullus must be thought of as a particularly
sophisticated combination of two genre poems: the lament over a
dead pet, and the lament over impotence.20 There is a similar joke in
the Satyricon of Petronius 137.1-2 when the priestess Oenothea
upbraids Encolpius for having killed the sacred goose of Priapus:
at illa complosis manibus 'scelerata' inquit

'etiam loqueris? nescis quam magnum flagitium
admiseris: occidisti Priapi delicias, anserem
omnibus matronis acceptissmum . . .'
The double entendre here is obvious, since that part of Priapus which
is also matronis acceptissimum is well known. In the case of Catullus
3, the mood is immediately set in the first tw

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque
et quantum est hominum venustiorum!
Havelock expressed well the feeling created by these opening lines

when he wrote: 'The lines reflect that urban, sophisticated idiom which
composed such an important ingredient in the Catullan temper.'21 The
clue, as David O. Ross, Jr. has pointed out,22 is in the word venustus,
which belongs especially to the urbanitas of the polymetrics. There
was a whole vocabulary used by the country club set to which Catullus
and his friends aspired, and it is in the polymetrics that they are most
consistently employed. The most famous example is basium,23 the
special word employed by this jet set for kiss, and it is within this
overcharged atmosphere that we should expect the double meaning of
passer to be appreciated. Such word plays would be unsuitable to the
epigrams, which stem from traditional Roman origins, and in the longer
poems, which aspire after the technical polish of the neoterics; in the
polymetrics, however, sophisticated, urbane style was the thing, even
in poems of real sorrow like 11, with its learned geographical excursus,
or 30, with the characteristic diminutive amiculus in the second line
and the trope of winds blowing away words and oaths at lines 9-10.
It is in this context as well that the reference to masturbation, so
troubling to Giangrande and Jocelyn, must be interpreted. Investiga-
tions into the masturbatory practices of the ancients are out of place
here; Catullus is making a risque reference to masturbation with the
same self-deprecating shrug as the god Priapus in Priap. 33.5-6, and
with as little concern for public scandal as the Cynic Diogenes in the
famous story in Diogenes Laertius 6.46. Most jokes are, after all, more
appropriate at a cocktail party than in the market place. Besides, the
whole point of posse (or for that matter, possem) at 2.9 is that the poet's
wish cannot be fulfilled. In sexual technique Lesbia ipsa is without peer.
It is in the same context that the unusual double diminutive turgiduli
... ocelli is to be understood. As Hermann Trinkle has pointed out,
diminutives were especially characteristic of the neoterics, and are con-
sequently used most heavily by Propertius and Ovid in those earlier
works - the first two books of Propertius and the Amores of Ovid -
which are still under neoteric influence. Trainkle especially picks
out ocellus as 'geradezu ein Kennwort der Liebeselegie'. Concerning
diminutives in general, he remarks: Die poetae novi haben diese
Ausdriicke, die in die Sprache der Liebenden geh6ren und Zirtlichkeit
offenbaren, aus der lebendigen Umgangssprache iibernommen, als sie
Liebende in ihren Werken reden liessen.24 The double use of diminutive
for both adjective and noun occurs only again at 25,2 imula auricilla,
where it is meant to produce an effete, hom

in the great neoteric epyllion at 64.316 aridulis
Parcae sisters. The use of diminutives at 3.18
atmosphere of the upper-class, over-educated
venustiores, where Catullus' sophisticated wit
of the stylish banter of the day.
Jocelyn has trouble with the tua of 3-17 be
is dead, is blamed, rather than the fates (see
Scaliger's defence of the manuscript reading
that vestra would be better supported by his
Cynthia ... cuius turbavit nitidos extinctus p
seems to share the problem (pp. 143-4), and
that a reproach is never addressed to the de
topos 'Totenklage um Tiere', but that it is ty
'death' of a mentula. Both of these solutions are
sary by G. P. Goold's reading of quod at 3.16
Goold properly calls this poem a 'mock elergy'. In exploding the
corrupt reading of 3.16 with its irritating hiatus - o factum male o
miselle passer - he points out (p. 200) that o factum male is not meant
as a lament over the sparrow's death, but rather as a lament over
Lesbia's sorrow. Since that is the point of the poem, a 'signpost', as
he puts it, is needed between o factum male and tua nunc opera, which
he supplies by conjecturing quod for the second exclamation o:
o factum male, quod, miselle passer
tua nunc opera meae puellae
flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli!
The sense therefore becomes, 'O calamity that the sparrow made my
sweetheart weep!'26 This is a very pretty poetic conceit, which works
particularly well with the double meaning of passer. The outburst
against malae tenebrae Orci at 13-14 no longer disrupts the forward
movement of the poem, but returns to its proper place as a momentary,
ironic exaggeration, while Lesbia's sorrow emerges as the final point
of the poem and the only real tragedy attendant upon the poet's (we
assume temporary) impotence.
If we can therefore assume, at least temporarily, that Catullus'
sparrow poems were composed as an obscene allegory, we should
naturally expect to see that fact reflected in subsequent poems inspired
by them. The most important of these imitations are Ovid Am. 2.6,
Statius Silv. 2.4, and Martial 1.7,109; 4.14; 7.14; and 11.6. Of these
Ovid's poem is perhaps the most interesting since it is not only the
earliest variation on Catullus' poem we have, but also goes out of its
way in the first verse to show its dependence: Psittacus, Eois imitatrix
ales ab Indis. Ovid started his poem with the

Catullus began his first sparrow poem with t
underscored his reference with the phrase E
time this had already become a commonplace
with Cat. 11.2-4:
sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,

litus ut longe resonante Eoa
tunditur unda...
It would, however, be unreasonable to look for obvious confirmation

of the allegorical level of Catullus' poem in Ovid's, for the Augustan
poet is deliberately burlesquing the surface imagery of the sparrow
poems. He is, in effect, taking the literal interpretation of the passer
poems and exaggerating it ad absurdum. The Venuses, Cupids, and
beautiful people who are told by Catullus to come and mourn are
transformed by Ovid into a flock of the parrot's feathered friends and
lovers (2-16), and the sparrow's journey down the dark road whence
none return is changed into an exaggerated picture of a bird's paradise
(49-62) peopled, or perhaps we should say birded, with noble aves of
the past. Corinna is not the centre of Ovid's poem as Lesbia was of
Catullus', however, for the catalogue of virtues at the centre of the
poem focuses our attention on the parrot; we briefly see Corinna praying
for her pet (43), but our emotions - such as they are - go out to the
loyal little fellow whose last words are Corinna, vale! (48). We should
also not forget that this was apparently the first epitaph ever written
for a parrot, a choice prompted no doubt not only because of the
opportunities it offered for rhetorical expansion, but also because
of the exaggerated and humorous contrast in sound between passer,
deliciae, and psittacus imitatrix. There may, however, have been one
more joke implied by this choice.
Statius' elegy to Atedius Melior's parrot is similarly unsuitable as
a test case, for it was obviously inspired more by Ovid's elegy than
by Catullus' lament and can thus only be considered an imitation of
an imitation. Fordyce rightly called it 'an orgy of erudition'.28 If there
is to be proof that the ancients recognized this secondary level of
meaning, it must therefore come from Martial, and indeed it was his
poem 11.6 which first suggested the obscene symbolism to Poliziano.29
In this poem, which is set on the Saturnalia (3-4), Martial addresses
his cup-bearer Dindymus:
misce dimidios, puer, trientes,
quales Pythagoras dabat Neroni,
misce, Dindyme, sed frequentiores:
possum nil ego sobrius; bibenti
succurrent mihi quindecim poetae.

da nunc basia, sed Catulliana:
quae si tot fuerint quot ille dixit,
donabo tibi Passerem Catulli.
The only possible alternative to an obscene interpretation for the

line is that a collection of Catullus' poems, beginning with and theref
called the Passer after our number 2, is meant as the present wh
Martial will give his cup-bearer.30 There is certainly nothing w
with this theory, but there is no need for us to go into it any furth
nor to consider the question whether or not the supposed Passer
collection was the one we have now, or a shorter collection, or indeed
in what form the poems of Catullus were most probably published,31
for the most that any ancillary meaning of passer could do for the poem
of Martial is to turn it from a double into a triple entendre. There is
certainly a play on words, but however extensive it is, the basic
obscenity of the joke is painfully obvious.
Indeed, the obscenity is not only obvious, it is very carefully pre-
pared. We are deliberately placed in the Saturnalia, a festival of ac-
knowledged licence. Martial's cup-bearer is named Dindymus after Mt.
Dindymus, the Phrygian mountain sacred to the goddess Cybele, whose
influence on the young priest Attis of Catullus 63 was and is famous.
Indeed, Catullus twice (at 35.14 and 63.91) calls Cybele domina
Dindymi. Martial calls for more wine. He compares his cup-bearer
with Pythagoras, the infamous cup-bearer of Nero. Lest there be any
misunderstanding about what the reference to Pythagoras implied,
here is the information which Tacitus supplies about him at Ann.
15.37.4:
ipse per licita atque inlicita foedatus nihil flagitii reliquerat, quo corruptiro ag
nisi paucos post dies uni ex illo contaminatorum grege (nomen Pythagorae fu
modum sollemnium coniugiorum denupsisset. inditum imperatori flammeum, m
auspices; dos et genialis torus et faces nuptiales, cuncta denique spectata, quae e
in femina nox operit.
This Pythagoras may be the same as the 'spear-chucker' Doryphoru

whose marriage to Nero is also mentioned at Suetonius Nero 29, w
further scandalous details about their relationship are listed. The b
is then told to give Catullan kisses, a line which obviously refers
5.7.32 To sum up, then, Martial says: 'It's Saturnalia! Boy, mix th
wine and get me drunker than Pythagoras got his "wife" Nero. Th
give me a thousand kisses, and then a hundred, then another thous
then a second hundred, then another thousand, then a hundred and
I'll give you -' What? A book of poetry? A pet bird in a gilded cage?
If that's all the boy can expect then the seduction is certainly working
backwards.
Jocelyn objects (pp. 423-4) that 'the pretty boy

not welcome anal penetration'. That is not at al
the pederasts of antiquity were no more concern
consent than was Ballio with the complaints of
(Plautus, Pseud. 3.1). That sodomy was the prefer
enough from such passages as Juvenal 2.10-13 and 9.43-44, Priap.
(pseudo-Tib.) 83.21-23, Apul. Met. 9.28, or Petronius, Sat. 23.3.
Jocelyn also says, 'One has only to put the alleged second meaning of
vv. 14-16 into plain Latin, e.g. si multa mihi milia basiorum dederis, te
paedicabo, for its absurdity to become manifest' - apparently without
realizing that he has composed a perfectly respectable prose Priapeum,
with which one could compare Priap. 38.3-4:
pedicare volo, tu vis decerpere poma;

quod peto, si dederis, quod petis accipies.
Closely related to 11.6 is Martial's 4.14, a poem addressed to Martial's

friend the epic poet Silius Italicus, asking him to put aside his serious
themes of Hannibal and the Punic Wars and listen instead to Martial's
lascivis madidos iocis libellos (12). As in 11.6, we are celebrating the
Saturnalia (7-9), and the last line clearly refers to the passer of Catullus:
sic forsan tener ausus est Catullus

magno mittere Passerem Maroni.
This certainly increases the probability that a collection of Catullus'

poems called the Passer existed, for the libellos of Martial are deliber-
ately compared with the Passerem of Catullus. At the end of the poem,
however, comes a seeming contradiction, or perhaps even a mistake
on Martial's part. Catullus, it has been noted,33 could not have sent
Virgil a copy of his poem, for Virgil was only 15 or 16 years old at
the probable time of Catullus' death. To blame this situation on con-
fusion, however, overlooks two important considerations. First of all,
by equating Silius Italicus with Virgil and himself with Catullus,
Martial has managed to pay himself and his friend a great compliment.34
Second, by linking up Virgil and Catullus at the time of Virgil's
adolescence, Martial has been able to use Virgil's unfortunate reputa-
tion in antiquity35 as an opportunity once again to exploit the double
meaning of passer. If this seems forced, perhaps a modern parallel will
make it clearer. Assumng that Hemingway had been as addicted to
the cock pit as he was to the bull ring and that instead of The Sun
Also Rises he had called his novel The Cock and the Bull, could we
read with a straight face a later author's dedication which stated: 'Dear
friend, I send you this novel just as Hemingway sent his Cock to the
great F. Scott Fitzgerald'? At any rate, in th

must decide if Martial settled for a complim
forced because of an historical falsification, or e
literary joke.
If it is to be objected to the above interpretation that the same
intimacy is implied between Martial and Silius Italicus as is implied
for Catullus and the young Virgil, then the bantering nature of the
humour in these epigrams has been misunderstood. This becomes
especially clear from the two poems, 1.7 and 7.14, which are linked
both to Catullus' passer poems and to Martial's patron L. Arruntius
Stella.
It is, first of all, obvious that Stella wrote a poem about the death
of his wife's dove in imitation of Catullus 3. This is stated in the first
3 lines of Martial 1.7:
Stellae delicium mei columba

Verona licet audiente dicam,
vicit, Maxime, passerem Catulli.
- an obvious parody of the opening of the first passer poem. The

is stated again in 7.14, wherein Martial sings of a woman of his
acquaintance who has lost delicias not of the paltry type over which
lamented Catullus' Lesbia,
vel Stellae cantata meo quas flevit Ianthis,

cuius in Elysio nigra columba volat...
Ianthis being Martial's name for Violentilla, the wife of his patron.
That Stella should have transferred Catullus' theme from a sparrow
to a doJe is not at all surprising, for we have seen the two birds linked
together both by Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist. 10.52.107) and by Apuleius
(Met. 6.6). Indeed Pliny's nephew referred to his own lusus and ineptiae
as passerculi et columbuli (9.25.2 and 3), their bantering nature being
quite evident from the sample he supplies at 7.4.6. We do not have to
agree with Wheeler's contention that these proposed titles were sug-
gested by the respective poetry books of Catullus and Stella36 to
recognize the natural association of these love birds and the erotic
nature of this kind of poetry.
That Stella meant the same thing by his columba as Catullus had
meant by his sparrow follows inevitably from the argument of 7.14.
How remarks ad loc. that this conclusion 'looks too good to be true,
in view of the final joke', a qualification resulting, I think, from failing
to see the logical progression of the poem. Picking up the poem where
we left off above, Martial continues:
lux mea non capitur nugis neque moribus i

nec dominae pectus talia damna movent:
bis senos puerum numerantem perdidit ann
mentula cui nondum sesquipedalis erat.
Martial's girl, he says, does not waste tears o

as inconsequential as a sparrow or a dove, b
would expect as a conclusion to see her dear
in opposition to the two silly pets. Instead o
goes on to show that the dearly departed i
which had not yet reached its allotted leng
The progression has not been from sparrow
but rather from 5 inches to 10 inches to 18 in
is precisely the same point made at the conc
tanto Stella meus tuo Catullo
quanto passere maior est columba.
'My Stella is as much greater than your Catullus as his dove is big
than Catullus' sparrow.'
Once having recognized this interpretation we return inevitably
the uncomfortable feeling, already mentioned in relation to 4.14,
we are watching these poets air their scandalous linen in public. Ma
seems to be joking about sodomizing Silius Italicus while Stella, if
wrote a poem about his wife's grief at the death of her dove, ha
admitted publically his own impotence! Rather than attempt to ar
this difficulty away, we should accept it as an inevitable ingredien
this kind of poetry. It does seem to have bothered Pliny the Pru
who saw fit to quote Catullus 16.5-8 in a letter to a relative about
hendecasyllabi, just as he attempted to exculpate himself from the app
brium of indulging in his versiculos severos parum by ticking off a lo
list of illustrious predecessors (5.3.5). In the poem to which we refe
above Pliny traces his inspiration to the great Cicero himself, w
wrote an epigram about stealing kisses from the faithful Tiro. 'C
post haec,' sings Pliny, 'nostros celamus amores... ?' (7.4.6 line 10)
a sentiment which both Catullus and Stella apparently shared. As P
How remarks,
If Stella had composed jocular epigrams on the size and decline of his own men
just as Catullus had done, there was no reason why Martial should have deemed
necessary to keep quiet about them ... such epigrams were intended for public
circulation as jocular pieces.37
In the case of Martial 1.109 we have the advantage of a 'scientific

control' - a real epitaph from the Roman equivalent of a Beverly Hills
Pet Cemetery about a real dog named Myia. It has already been men-
tioned in connection with the text of Catullus 3.16:
quam dulcis fuit ista, quam benigna

quae cum viveret in sinu iacebat
somni conscia semper et cubilis.
o factum male, Myia, quod peristi.
latrares modo, si quis adcubaret
rivalis dominae, licentiosa:
o factum male, Myia, quod peristi.
altum iam tenet insciam sepulcrum,
nec saevire putes nec insilire,
nec blandis mihi morsibus renides.
This is a particularly useful control, for the dependence on Catullus

is obvious. The in sinu iacebat occupies the same position in the line
as Catullus' in sinu tenere (2.2) and the blandis ... morsibus of the last
line owes as much to the acris ... morsus of Cat. 2.4 as to Myia's
temperament. Nonetheless the picture which emerges is completely
consistent. Although sparrows do not snuggle up to bosoms lapdogs
do; they also bark, nibble, and act jealous of their mistresses. When
we turn to the more sophisticated world of Martial, however, no such
realistically consistent picture emerges. Martial reminds us of Catullus
in the first line: Issa est passere nequior Catulli and of Stella in the
second: Issa est purior osculo columbae, but his poem suffers from
inconsistency as the result of this contaminatio. How can the dog be
naughtier than one and purer than the other? Are we supposed to take
an average? Further on the purior image is strangely developed:
castae tantus inest pudor catellae,
ignorat Venerem; nec invenimus
dignum tam tenera virum puella.
First of all, castus is never applied to an animal except, of course, to

sacrificial victims.38 Even the exemplary Myia was not said to be
ignorant of Venus - a most unusual complement for a bitch; and the
sudden anthropomorphism of catella into puella and of her intended
catellus into vir comes as a complete surprise.
I am sure the reader has anticipated my solution to these problems,
but let us look a bit further before stating it. At 2.57.3 Martial refers
again to his friend Publius - this time in terms that make it clear the
fellow was a fop. Furthermore in epigram 10.98 Martial is irritated
that Publius' minister is Idaeo resolutior cinaedo, more elegant indeed
than Publius' wife, daughter, mother, and sister combined. As he warns
his friend at the end of the poem:
Perdet te dolor hic: habere, Publi,
mores non potes hos et hos ministros.
Publius seems a lot like his little dog Issa. The implied relationship
with his minister / cinaedus shows that he is passere nequior Catulli
while, at least as far as women are concerned, he is purior osculo

columbae. Assuming, as is often the case, that his wife and daughter
are so much window dressing, Publius undoubtedly is as ignorant of
Aphrodite as he is familiar with Eros.
Mario Citroni has already sensed something going on behind the
picture of Issa:
Marziale ha sentito l'allusivita erotica dei giochi del passero catulliano (colombi, passeri,
ecc., rientravano comunemente in un gioco di simologia erotica.. .): Issa non e da
meno. 39
It is, however, necessary to state openly what Citroni seems only to

hint at: In writing 1.109 Martial has not only imitated the theme of
Cat. 2, he has also adapted its double entendre by having the dog Issa
stand for the phallus of Publius. There are, of course, differences. For
the first time the animal does not stand for the phallus of the poet,
and the allegory is not maintained throughout the poem. The dog Issa
certainly existed - the dog's name, a form ipsa implying 'mistress',40
is perfect, and the dog is referred to again at 7.87 - and the double
entendre is most effective in lines 1-4, where the identity of Issa is
tantalizingly withheld.
In Greek KVwv could of course take on the extended meaning 'phal-
lus', just as K;vva dvacUTv meant 'to have an erection'. Theodor Hopfner
links the obscene meaning of both sparrow and dog, saying that they
arise 'wegen der bekannten Geilheit dieser Tiere'.41 Besides the entry
in Hesychius, the clearest evidence of dog's secondary meaning is
Marcus Argentarius' unflattering portrait of the whore Menophile,
A.P. 5.105, where the last line makes an obvious reference to fellatio:
AAAog ' MqjvoplAas AyE'yETaL apa iaxAdaU KOU/LOS ,
&AAo0 97TEL '7Tcflg 7EyVETa daKpaau7s.
dAA'"TE XaAXaLot, KE(Vr)S r7TEAag. 1j yap O TaT7)S

otpav EvTOS EV XL KatL KVa KLat Vss1tOUVg.
Vincens Buchheit has furthermore seized upon this double meaning
of KVwv as an explanation for the inclusion of the otherwise uncharac-
teristically bucolic poem 62 among the Priapea:
Securi dormite, canes: custodiet hortum
cum sibi dilecta Sirius Erigone.42
As a further instance of dog symbolizing phallus we have an amazing

tintinnabulum found in Pompeii. It depicts a gladiator hacking away
at his own huge phallus, the head of which snarls back at him in the
shape of a dog.43
By this time a consistency of double meaning has emerged both in
the sparrow poems of Catullus and in the cycle of their imitations by
Martial. Indeed, Martial has so expanded on t

its original force can no longer, I think, serio
venustiores, the people 'in the know', passer mea
as basium meant kiss, and for Catullus the use of a double entendre
was as stylish as diminutives or compound adjectives. This sophisti-
cated badinage seems to have gone over the head of Statius, and it
certainly made no impression upon Myia's amateur panegyrist. In the
case of Ovid, however, we should not be so sure and in retrospect may
even suggest that he anticipated the joke of Martial 1.7. Compared
with the sparrow the parrot is, after all, a considerably bigger bird.
NOTES
1. See Julia Haig Gaisser, TAPA 112 (1982), 102-3, where the releva
Poliziano's Miscellanea (1489) is quoted and discussed.
2. Jocelyn, AJP 101 (1980), 421-41, hereafter cited as Jocelyn; Gen
121-5, hereafter Genovese; Giangrande, Museum Philologum Londinien
after Giangrande. Jocelyn provides a useful summary of scholarly in
bird on pp. 422-6, to which should be added the generally sympathetic r
A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial (London, 198
Giangrande has contributed two pages of commentary (pp. 122-3), con
in their claims than his above cited article. Kenneth Quinn, Catullus a
1972), p. 85 has called the obscene interpretation of these poems 'a persi
but goes on to say: 'One cannot rule that component of meaning out e
was not displeased if it added a hint of mockery to two complex poem
important component: Poems 2 and 3 were hardly written to perpetr
Such a statement differs only in degree from the position of this paper
popularity of Poliziano's theory throughout the Renaissance I can also point out George
Gascoigne's lyric 'Philip My Sparrow' set to music in 1606 by the Elizabethan lutenist John
Bartlet. See Noah Greenberg, An Elizabethan Song Book (New York, 1955), p. 10.
3. Genovese, pp. 123-5.
4. Giangrande, pp. 145-6 and 140-4. Jocelyn disposes of Giangrande's interpretation of the
Atalanta myth quite effectively, pp. 430-3.
5. A comparison with Martial 11.6 is the only evidence offered by Poliziano. See Gaisser (n. 1).
6. These were collected in the seventh book of the Anthology (189-216). The standard study
is G. Herrlinger, Totenklage um Tiere (Stuttgart, 1930), especially pp. 39-51.
7. Havelock, The Lyric Genius of Catullus (New York, 1929), p. 147; Fordyce, Catullus, a
Commentary (Oxford, 1973), p. 88. Fordyce prefers to think of the passer in the poem as the
blue rock-thrush, Montisola solitarius, which he said is still commonly called passero in Italy.
Jocelyn lets that remark pass without comment, though Giangrande's remark (p. 137) that passero
and pipere have obscene connotations in modem Italian brings the stinging remark (p. 426) that
'Native English speakers could cite similar and similarly irrelevant items from the coarser registers
of their language'.
8. Frequently cited is Apuleius Met. 8.15 which describes the moving of a household:
gerebamus infantulos et mulieres, gerebamus pullos, passeres, aedos, catellos ... Given its late, post-
Catullan date, however, such a passage should be thought of as life imitating art. In a similar
fashion countless Americans were willing to invest thousands of dollars in a sulphur crested
cockatoo after the success of Robert Blake's 'Baretta' series on television. The animals in the
Anthology, unlike sparrows (and like cockatoos, by the way), do make delightful pets. T
even true of caged crickets which, one is reminded, were kept by the Okinawans in John Pat
play The Teahouse of the August Moon (New York, 1952), pp. 45-6.
9. E. A. Wallis Budge, Ancient Egyptian Language, Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyph
(1910; rpt. Chicago: Ares, 1975), p. 34 number 24 and p. 67 number 80.
10. The Festus quote was noted as early as Voss's comm

is also cited by Genovese, pp. 121-2. Jocelyn (p. 426 n. 33
consideration, merely remarking (p. 427) that 'there is no
usage'.
11. Rudd, TAPA 90 (1959), 238-42; Richardson, CP 58 (1963), 101, concerning which point
Vincent J. Rosivach, TAPA 108 (1978), 214 n. 57, remarked: 'Richardson does not prove his
case, but to my mind he does present enough evidence that the possibility must be left open.'
For the article by Maxwell-Stuart, Hermes 100 (1972), 222, see the remarks in Felix Buffiere,
Eros adolescent: la peddrastie dans la Grace antique (Paris, 1980), pp. 316-17 n. 95. Buffiere sounds
much like Jocelyn in rejecting Maxwell-Stuart's theory - 'Libre a chacun de donner des poetes
un exegese "allegorique"' - but with more justification, for book rolls lack the literary tradition
of 'slaciousness' long associated with sparrows.
12. Jocelyn, pp. 427-8. In making this citation I fulfill Jocelyn's fear that he may be 'supplying
ammunition for untrustworthy hands'.
13. The first two are by Merrill, Catullus, p. xxvii, and J. Wight Duff, A Literary History
of Rome (New York, 1960), p. 236; the next by Voss (above, n. 10), p. 6.
14. The always perceptive Dorothy Parker offers an interesting corroboration of Voss's
viewpoint in the following lines written, as far as I know, without knowledge of Poliziano's theory:
That thing he wrote, the time the sparrow died -
(Oh, most unpleasant - gloomy, tedious words!)
I called it sweet, and made believe I cried;
That stupid fool! I've always hated birds...
'From a Letter From Lesbia', The Viking Portable Library Dorothy Parker (New York, 1944),
p. 452.
15. Most keep silent about the possibility, which is the least embarrassing solution. Of those
that deal with the problem, we have already seen Voss's reaction to the traditional, literalist
interpretation that would have Catullus consoling himself over Lesbia's heartlessness by playing
with a pet sparrow. M. Lenchantin de Gubernatis in his commentary (Torino, 1928) at least
takes the bull by the horns when he says, 'Non mette conto di ricordare che il Poliziano ed altri
umanisti nel passer volevano trovare un'allusione che il v. 9 sg. esclude'. Giangrande (pp. 144-5)
counters by saying that, on the contrary, it is these very lines which make his interpretation work.
16. See Jocelyn, p. 422 n. 5, who attributes this solution to Alessandro Guarini (Venice,
1520). It has been followed most recently by D. F. S. Thomson in his critical edition (Chapel
Hill, 1978) and was also taken up by Kroll (Berlin, 1923), Mynors (Oxford, 1958), and Fordyce
(Oxford, 1973). Merrill (Cambridge, 1893) and Ellis (Oxford, 1904) indicate a lacuna after 2.10.
Baehrens (Leipzig, 1876) followed the manuscripts in printing 2 as a unit.
17. Voss (above, n. 10), p. 7; Quinn, Catullus, The Poems (New York, 1970), p. 95.
18. This is certainly preferable to the tortuous double negative developed by Giangrande
(pp. 145-6): 'I wish I could, but I cannot (possem) indulge in masturbation: I cannot, because
such a practice is just as agreeable to me (tam gratumst) as was the apple to Atalanta, which
caused her to lose the race, wherefore she had to abandon her beloved unnatural practices and
endure the fututiones which she hated.' This interpretation has been most effectively dismantled
by Jocelyn, pp. 430-3.
19. Voss, p. 7 and Jocelyn, p. 426 n. 34 and p. 427. The emendation bracchica mala at Priap.
72.4 offered up as evidence for the obscene sense of malum is clearly weak: it is not included in
the Biicheler-Heraeus edition of the Priapea (Berlin, 1912), and is rejected by Richard Clairmont
in his recent critical edition (Diss. Loyola University of Chicago, 1983) for the manuscripts'
bracchia macra, which is clearly meant to balance grandia mala.
20. Thus Giangrande, p. 140, with which cf. Jocelyn, p. 434 n. 71. Voss, p. 8 was the first
openly to state this sexual interpretation of Catullus 3: Nihilominus flagitiosum est hoc carmen
quam praecedens. Non me fugit viros eruditos longe aliter sentire, et credere nihil hic esse quod
non castissimae matronae mitti possit, sed vero si existimemus Catullum confectum et exhaustum
lucta venerea et funerata, ut cum Petronio loquar, ea parte quae virum facit, Lesbiae suae hoc
epigramma scripsisse, tanto utique plus leporis hoc versiculos habituros existimo, quanto fuerint
nequiores. Et sane quid passeri cum gremio puellae, si nihil dictu turpe hic subintelligi debeat?
For parallels with the lament over a dead pet, see Herrlinger, above, n. 6. Both Jocelyn and
Giangrande give several parallels for lamented impotence, fr

Priap. 83 should especially be stressed.
21. Havelock (above, n. 7), p. 20. Giangrande's interpretatio
'men luckier in love than Catullus' (see, pp. 141-5) is strange a
disposed of by Jocelyn, pp. 434-9.
22. Style and Tradition in Catullus (Cambridge, 1969), p. 10
and the vocabulary of the Polymetrics' at length, pp. 104-12.
23. Ibid. p. 105.
24. Die Sprachkunst der Properz und die Tradition der lateinischen Dichtersprache (Wiesbaden,
1960), pp. 28-9.
25. Phoenix 23 (1969), 186-203.
26. The manuscripts read bonum factum male bonus ille passer, which was corrected to o
factum male o miselle passer under the influence of Cicero, Att. 15.1.1: o factum male de Alexione
... Among the commentators, Kroll, Fordyce, Mynors, and Thomson (see above, n. 16) print
o factum male! o miselle passer! although Thomson does mention Goold's emendation in his
appendix. Baehrens and Merrill adopt Lachmann's emendation o factum male! io miselle passer,
while Ellis goes out on a limb with vae factum male! vae miselle passer! The double o is almost
universally admired, and indeed O. Skutsch in his review of Goold's edition of Catullus in CP
69 (1974), 126-7 says the proposed reading' ... seems to me to deflate the pathos of the passage'.
In support of the favourite reading I can cite Priap. 83.19, in a context virtually identical to the
one we are suggesting for Catullus 3: at o sceleste penis, o meum malum. I can also point out a
similar passage in Tymnes' lament for his dead songbird (A.P. 7.199.1-2):
OpvEov G Xaptatv /tE/LEA7/L/EVov, w 7rapo/Lotov

aAKv'oaLv aroy UOV POyyOV lWaoa/LEvov.
For the first half of his article Goold attacks the possibility of a hiatus in Catullus such as the
proposed line contains; he then demonstrates most skillfully that the two o's usually proposed
at Catullus 3.16 do not present a balance, as can indeed be found in the two parallels I have
suggested above, but rather prevent one, for the two halves in the Catullan line are not equal.
The corrupt text would translate, 'O calamity, o sparrow, you have made me weep', which
wrongly separates the sense of sparrow and you. Goold's final citation of Carm. Epig. 1512 Biich.,
a real inscription and an obvious imitation of Catullus 3, with its line o factum male, Myia, quod
peristi is, I think, conclusive, despite O. Skutsch's objection that the proposed vocative after
quod is not paralleled.
27. Cf. Tib. 2.2.15-16, Prop. 3.13.5-15, and pseudo-Tib. 3.8.20.
28. Fordyce (above, n. 7), p. 92.
29. See above, n. 1.
30. For the very popular theory that a collection of poems by Catullus called the Passer was
in circulation, see Arthur Leslie Wheeler, Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry (Berkley,
1964), pp. 19-20, 21, and n. 24 p. 251; Havelock (above, n. 7), pp. 185 n. 3 and 187 n. 28; Quinn
(above, n. 2), p. 13; Voss (above, n. 10), pp. 5-6, who traces the theory to Parthenius and suggests
its popularity is due to the fact that it offers the only alternative to an obscene interpretation of
the lines under discussion! See also Jocelyn, p. 424, who cites T. Birt, Das antike Buchwesen
(Berlin, 1882), p. 407.
31. For a convenient discussion of these problems, see Fordyce (above, n. 7), pp. 409-10.
32. Poliziano obviously thought so as well, for in Misc. 6 he misquotes Martial to read 'Da
mihi basia, sed Catulliana', which of course, intentionally or unintentionally, makes the connection
with Catullus 5.7 more obvious. See Gaisser (above, n. 1), p. 102 n. 52.
33. See Quinn (above, n. 2), p. 284 n. 17, and H. J. Isaac, Martial, Epigrammes (Paris, 1933),
vol. 1. p. 255 n. 5.
34. Thus Wheeler (above, n. 30), pp. 19-20.
35. Donatus Vita 9: libidinis in pueros pronioris.
36. Wheeler (above, n. 30), pp. 53-54 and 255 n. 29. See also Peter Howell (above, n. 2),
p. 123, who believes that the two terms refer to Catullus' and Stella's poems.
37. Howell, p. 127.
38. Mario Citroni, M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton Liber Primus (Firenze, 1975), p. 339.
39. Citroni, p. 336.
40. Howell, p. 333. I would not suggest anything beyond coinc

and Cat. 2.9.
41. Hopfner, Das Sexualleben der Griechen und Romer (Prague, 1938), vol. 1. p. 104
also pp. 21 and 162.
42. Buchheit, Studien zum Corpus Priapeorum (Miinchen, 1962), pp. 124-7. Buchheit
cites A.P. 12.225 and the riddle poem 14.43. Bernhard Kytzler, Carmina Priapea: Gedich
dem Gartengott (Ziirich, 1978), p. 219 concurs with Buchheit's interpretation.
43. RP, Inv. no. 27853. For an illustration, see Michael Grant, Eros in Pompeii (New
1975), p. 143.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
MICHAEL LLOYD: Lecturer in Greek, The Queen's University,

Belfast.
RONALD A. KNOX: Lecturer in Greek and Greek History,
University of Glasgow.
RICHARD W. HOOPER: teaches at St. Luke's School, New Canaan,
Connecticut.
GEORGE W. HOUSTON: Associate Professor of Classics, University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
NICHOLAS HORSFALL: Lecturer in Greek and Latin, University
College, London.

Article HOOPER - in Defence of Catullus's Dirty Sparrow - G&R 32 (1985)

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In Defence of Catullus' Dirty Sparrow

Author(s): Richard W. Hooper

IN DEFENCE OF CATULLUS' DIRTY SPARROW

Poliziano's theory that the sparrow of Lesbia in Catullus 2 and 3 is none

un-sparrow-like way. The picture at 2.2-4 is, f

E. T. Merrill in his commentary (Cambridge, 1893) gives the only

I have myself enjoyed the company of a pet parrot named Epaminondas

The fact that these poems could function

as sexual intercourse with Lesbia. That interpret

o quotiens, cum iam posset transire, morata est

at illa complosis manibus 'scelerata' inquit

3, the mood is immediately set in the first tw

Havelock expressed well the feeling created by these opening lines

where it is meant to produce an effete, hom

ales ab Indis. Ovid started his poem with the

sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,

It would, however, be unreasonable to look for obvious confirmation

succurrent mihi quindecim poetae.

The only possible alternative to an obscene interpretation for the

This Pythagoras may be the same as the 'spear-chucker' Doryphoru

Jocelyn objects (pp. 423-4) that 'the pretty boy

pedicare volo, tu vis decerpere poma;

Closely related to 11.6 is Martial's 4.14, a poem addressed to Martial's

sic forsan tener ausus est Catullus

This certainly increases the probability that a collection of Catullus'

great F. Scott Fitzgerald'? At any rate, in th

Stellae delicium mei columba

- an obvious parody of the opening of the first passer poem. The

vel Stellae cantata meo quas flevit Ianthis,

lux mea non capitur nugis neque moribus i

Martial's girl, he says, does not waste tears o

In the case of Martial 1.109 we have the advantage of a 'scientific

quam dulcis fuit ista, quam benigna

This is a particularly useful control, for the dependence on Catullus

First of all, castus is never applied to an animal except, of course, to

while, at least as far as women are concerned, he is purior osculo

It is, however, necessary to state openly what Citroni seems only to

dAA'"TE XaAXaLot, KE(Vr)S r7TEAag. 1j yap O TaT7)S

As a further instance of dog symbolizing phallus we have an amazing

Martial. Indeed, Martial has so expanded on t

10. The Festus quote was noted as early as Voss's comm

Giangrande give several parallels for lamented impotence, fr

OpvEov G Xaptatv /tE/LEA7/L/EVov, w 7rapo/Lotov

40. Howell, p. 333. I would not suggest anything beyond coinc

MICHAEL LLOYD: Lecturer in Greek, The Queen's University,

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