Catullus 4 ends on a beautiful note, saying that the boat has been
dedicated to the twins Castor and Pollux, patron spirits of sailors.
The very last line features a curious ommission:
gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris.
Why does he only mention Pollux by proxy? If we assume that Castor
represents Catullus, then Pollux represents his brother. His brother
is dead and the name is ommitted to signify his absence. According to
ancient precepts, the dead live only through their surviving
relatives. It's a profoundly moving line.
You wouldn't know poem 4 had any connection with the brother of
Catullus if it weren't for the hints in the poem and the few facts we
know about the life of Catullus. There is another poem, poem 101,
where he writes about his visit to his brother's grave overseas. It's
a masterpiece of restraint and it provides the context for his
subsequent reticence in poem 4. It's short enough and moving enough to
deserve being quoted in full:
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt triste munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuam, frater, ave atque vale.
It's hard to beat that poem for the manly dignity and grace it reveals
in the presence of almost overwhelming sorrow. It's hard to believe
that it's the same author responsible for the indescriminate and
savage sexuality of poem 56, or the gender bending 51, where the poets
writes like a woman of his/her passion for another woman. I think
those poems are simply masks. Poems like 4, where he merely hints at
the truth, are like Elgar's Enigma Variations, expressing his real
feelings in an intimate but secretive way, for the appreciation of
close friends.
I can imagine him looking up from his brother's grave, seeing the
pines and cedars nearby and resolving to make a boat out of them, a
magical boat that would even cross over land when it needed to,
eventually coming to rest on Lake Garda, in view of their boyhood
home. I think of that and I can forgive anything. Ave atque vale.
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