Manuscript Challenge St. Sebastian s School Luke Diggins, Orvin A. Pierre, Patrick Ryan Catullus: Carmina V ivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus, Rumoresque senum severiorum Omnes unius extimemus assis: Soles occidere & redire possunt: Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, Nox est perpetua una dormienda. Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, Deinde mi altera, da secunda centum, Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum. Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, Aut ne quis malus invidere possit, Quom tantum sciat esse basiorum.
Translation: Let us live and love, my Lesbia, And let us value the rumors of the strict old men As a single penny: The suns are able to set and rise: Once when the brief light falls for us One eternal night must be slept. Give me one thousand kisses, then one hundred, Then another thousand, next a second hundred. Then continuously another thousand and afterward one hundred. Then when we have made many thousands, We will mix them up so we do not know, Or so no wicked one is able to be jealous When he discovers how many kisses there are.
The Poem: Analysis/Observations The process of accurately translating and analyzing the Manuscript, which is a lyric poem by Catullus, starts with properly reading the Latin, which proved difficult, as some of the letters have faded or smudged. Another issue in the reading was understanding the scribe s writing style and any abbreviations used when writing. For example, there are multiple long f like shapes throughout the manuscript which we transcribed as an s when we rewrote the poem. We knew this through context and recognition of possible Latin words. Similarly, there were z letters that appeared after a q twice throughout the manuscript, which we changed into ue when transcribing to form the words atque and usque. Our group also encountered translation difficulties due to the structure of the poem. Catullus poem is in hendecasyllabic meter, meaning there are eleven syllables per line, which sets a strict guideline for where words can fit, resulting in syncopated, or shortened, forms of words, abbreviations, numerous elisions, and understood words. One example is when we translated the word extimemus in the manuscript as a shortened form of existimemus, a present active jussive subjunctive form of the word existimo, existimare, existimavi, existimatus, meaning to judge or value. Unlike other Latin poetry, such as Vergil s Aeneid, which is an epic poem, not a lyric one, which regularly has lengthy sentences full of more complex grammar and structure, Catullus poem here is more simple. That is not to say that his poem lacks advanced Latin grammar, as he uses a gerundive of obligation, subjunctives, a cum clause, and other grammatical structures, but Catullus poem contains some simplicity to it. Each thought is completed in one or two lines, thus allowing the reader to easily understand his message. We know this poem is addressed to Lesbia, his lover, and this poem reads almost as a love letter he wants to send to her. Through poetic devices, Catullus is able to convey his profound love for Lesbia. Asking for thousands upon thousands of kisses can be interpreted as hyperbole, as he is asking for an impossibly large amount of kisses. This exaggeration reveals how madly in love with Lesbia
Catullus really is, as he has an impossible request for her. There is also use of anaphora and asyndeton in the lines in which Catullus asks for the kisses from Lesbia. The repetition of the word deinde and the lack of any conjunctions that connect the phrases suggest that Catullus thoughts are bouncing around quickly. The removal of any conjunctions results in quick changes in thought, and the repeated used of the same transition word show how Catullus mind is racing and excited by the thought of kissing her. At first, he asks for one thousand kisses, a large sum, but the mere thought of kissing her puts him in a frenzy, making him request more and more kisses in quick succession. Although this poem was deliberately written and planned out, Catullus language expresses how his love for Lesbia can never be satisfied, not even by thousands of kisses, and how he almost loses his mind when thinking about kissing her. The Manuscript and Scribal Process: A small hand appears in the left margin of the manuscript, and it seems to be pointing to the word Nox at the start of the sixth line of the poem. Such drawings are quite common in medieval manuscripts. Often these drawings take the form of faces or animals, but these hands also frequently appear. They are commonly referred to Manicula, or little hands. Most are used to point out what the artist considered to be an important word or line, acting like the medieval equivalent of a highlighter. Compared to many, which often sprout from an animal s mouth or are part of a full body, the maniculum in our manuscript is quite simple and small. Perhaps he points out this line because he feels this part of the poem becomes too suggestive or risque. In all likelihood, Ludovico Regio of Imola was a monk and worked in a monastery. Catullus, even in Rome, and especially in a Medieval Monastery could be considered scandalous. He openly courts a woman who we now believe was married to another man. In this specific poem, prior to the fifth line, Catullus does not specifically discuss his relationship with Lesbia. However, after this line, he begs Lesbia to kiss him thousands of times in secret. A religious monk would view these actions as even worse than Romans and modern translators. Even if he was not a monk, Ludovico Regio was almost guaranteed to be Christian, as the Christian faith was strongly supported in almost every country in the fifteenth century. A lay Christian would also recognize
how Catullus writes about committing adultery and how sinful and disgraceful that is according to their current religion. He could also be misinterpreting the line. Una, in the context of the poem means one, and it acts as an adjective modifying the perpetua Nox. However, if the second syllable of Una is long, the word means together and acts as an adverb, in this context modifying the gerundive Dormienda. Essentially, Catullus would be telling Lesbia An eternal night must be slept by us together. Most translators today assume that the eternal night refers to death. However, Ludovico Regio could assume it only means a night made longer by lack of sleep. Anyway, the scribe could have been unsure of the proper Latin meaning, so he (or someone looking at it later) marked it with a small drawing as a bookmark of sorts. Finally, these manicula are especially interesting because there is no real way to date them. Typically, a manuscript s age can be determined by script and style. Since a doodle follows no specific style, the drawing could have been added at any time after the manuscript was written. Regio could have drawn it himself, or another could have added it because they found the line particularly moving or beautiful. Manuscripts, essentially, are books. Therefore, they were read, and likely frequently. Just like readers today, we underline and write notes in the margins to remind us of a thought we had while reading. This hand could be nothing more than a reminder for one reader for whom that line stood out. The long, or medial, s appears several times in our manuscript. This long shape, that most nearly resembles a Roman Alphabet lower-case f replaces a lower case s and was developed from the Roman cursive s. In our manuscript, the s is used in place of any lower case s, so it is not used at the beginning of line four, because the S at the start of Soles is capitalized. The long s is also not used twice in a row, so in assis of line three, the first s is long, but the second is a standard lower case s. Otherwise, the use of the long s seems to be purely based on preference and style of the scribe, just as the other longer strokes, such as the ones on the tail of every q. The page of the manuscript itself appears to be high quality paper, as the page has faint horizontal lines on the page to make writing much easier and the final product more impressive. This is clearly a copy meant to be a final draft that could serve as a textbook or learning tool, as opposed to a hasty copy that is not as well written. There also appear to be no signs of major
deterioration, despite signs of possible frequent use, suggesting that the paper was designed to last. Regarding the page number at the upper right corner (a number 3), we are not sure when exactly the pages were numbered in the collection of Catullus poems, as this page is just one of many. The numbers could have been added originally, but they also could have been added later, as the 3 is made from a different pen that makes thinner lines. However, throughout the collection, the page number only appears on the Recto pages, not on the Verso pages, indicating the pages were arranged and bound in pairs. On our manuscript, the letters fade from left to right, making most lines more difficult to read as they continue. This made identification of any punctuation at the ends of lines especially difficult. Our first explanation was that the scribe would dip his pen in ink at the start of each line, and by the time he reached the end of the line, his pen would be nearly dry. This is a possibility, however it seems unlikely the scribe would be satisfied with an uneven coat of script. Also, the pages before and after the page of this poem do not have faded ink as the line continues. Even in the other poem on the same page, there is no fading. another possible explanations for this fading is that a certain part of the poem was left exposed in sunlight, causing the ink on part of the page to fade. Ad Lesbia is one of Catullus most famous poems, so it is likely that it was read more often than other poems in the collection. Extra wear from extensive reading also may have contributed to the gradual fading of the end of the lines on the page. Besides the large letter V, sometimes called a drop cap, at the start of the poem, the page is almost completely blank when it comes to artistic painting or designs. Part of it seems to be that the document appears to be a copy of Catullus poems meant to be in a textbook style format, so plenty of open space is left for possible note-taking. Another possibility is that the scribe was methodically copying older poems onto new paper to preserve them, so adding artwork on the margins would simply be a waste of time and resources. Lastly, the page could be left blank besides the words to signify the simplicity of Catullus poem; it is written almost like a letter one would send to a lover, so the page is set up to resemble a regular paper one would write a letter on. The lack of design could be an active choice by the scribe to let Catullus poetry stand alone as the only art on the page; he does not want any distractions from
the beauty of the Latin. Lastly, the page could be blank because the scribe was copying the text exactly as it was written in an older manuscript, and because the page in that older document is blank, he didn t add anything new to his new copy. Returning to the idea of the drop cap mentioned earlier, it is the only piece of color and artwork on the page. Because this page comes from a massive list of Catullus poems, the drop cap is used to signify the start of a new poem; there is actually a second poem with its drop cap on the same page of the poem we looked at. It gives the poems a little flavor without being too fanciful or painstakingly difficult to make. Instead of using titles, a numbering system, or anything like that, the scribe uses the drop cap as a method of transitioning onto a new poem, and the drop cap does add a small amount of color and artwork on the page.