“Grouchiness is harshness in social interactions. The grouch is the kind of person who:
When asked, “where is this person?” responds, “Don’t interrupt me.”
Or he does not answer when someone addresses him
Or if he is selling something does not tell people who want to buy it how much it costs but asks instead, “what will it get?”
To those who honor him and send him something on holidays, he says that there won’t be anything in return.
He won’t forgive when someone spills something on them or bumps into him or steps on his foot.
Or, once he has refused to give a loan to a friend asking for one, returns later bringing the funds and saying that he’s wasting this money too.
Or he curses the paving stone when he trips in the street
Or he refuses to wait for anyone very long.
Or he never is willing to sing or recite a speech or dance.
He tends not to pray, even to the gods.”
Publicity photo of American actress, Margaret Hamilton and American Muppet, Oscar the Grouch promoting the February 10, 1976 premiere of Episode #0847 of Sesame Street.
“I had never before endured a storm like this in Attica. The winds came blowing in from every angle, striking more like series of attacks rather than one onslaught. The snow was already thick and piling in drifts, first covering the ground and then rising so high that it made a blanket so deep that it was barely possible to open the door and look into the street. I didn’t have enough wood or a wool cloak. How could I? Where would I get them? The sharp cold was seeping into my marrow and my bones. So, I made myself an Odyssean plan to run to the bath chambers or their ovens.”
“I don’t want winter. It brings snow and I fear the cold”
οὐ λῶ χεῖμα· φέρει νιφετόν, κρυμὼς δὲ φοβεῦμαι.
Seneca, Natural Questions IVB 13.2
“You want more? Do you imagine that this exploration of nature offers nothing to what you want? When we examine how snow develops and claim that it has characteristics like frost, that it contains more air than water, don’t you consider it a criticism of those people who–even though it is shameful to purchase water–buy less water when they do than air?”
Quid porro? Hanc ipsam inspectionem naturae nihil iudicas ad id quod vis conferre? Cum quaerimus quomodo nix fiat et dicimus illam pruinae similem habere naturam, plus illi spiritus quam aquae inesse, non putas exprobrari illis, cum emere aquam turpe sit, si ne aquam quidem emunt?
Sextus Empicirus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.33
“Anaxagoras argued against snow’s whiteness because snow is frozen water and water is black therefore snow is black.”
“Anaximenes says that clouds develop when air is super condensed and if it is compressed even more, rain happens. Snow, too, [happens] if this water freezes as it falls. Hail is when some air is trapped up in the moisture.”
“Snow develops when super condensed clouds break apart and separate before changing to water. The breaking is what makes the white foaminess of the snow. The coldness comes from structure of the moisture inside it which did not get to fully develop or purify. When there is a lot of snow falling together, it is called a snowstorm.”
I think we can say that Sophocles’ Antigone is over the top.
The morbidity and high seriousness are so “extra” that maybe we should respond–with a smile and a head shake–as we do when B.B. King sings:
Nobody loves me but my mother,
And she could be jivin’ too.
In that spirit, consider Antigone’s famous address to the chorus before she’s led off to die:
806-816
Citizens of the fatherland, look at me–
Last time walking this road.
Last time seeing sunlight.
This is it.
Hades who readies sleep for all
Ushers me alive to Acheron’s shore.
I did not have my wedding song;
No nuptial hymn was sung for me.
That’s ok. I’ll be Acheron’s bride.
Also, consider the bluesy earthiness of the messenger’s philosophy of life, as told to the chorus (and rendered in bluesy English):
1165-1171
When a man’s fun goes,
He’s not alive, if you ask me.
He’s a feeling corpse, that’s my view.
Live large, if that’s your jam.
Roll like a king.
But when the thrill is gone,
That stuff’s not worth a shadow of smoke.
Nope, not without the fun.
“The fundamental function of the blues musician . . . is not only to drive the blues away and hold them at bay at least for the time being, but also to evoke an ambiance of Dionysian revelry in the process.”–Albert Murray, Stomping the Blues
Editor’s note: we are happy to bring you this essay from Plum Luard. If you are interested in posting on SA, just reach out.
Catullus’s love affairs are a central theme of his poems–illustrating tales of beautiful, amorous relationships as well as the pain they inflict upon him. Much scholarship on Catullus’s poems aims to unpack his unending depictions and lamentations of his love for Lesbia.
Meghan O. Drinkwater’s “The Woman’s Part: The Speaking Beloved in Roman Elegy,” expands on the idea of a powerful beloved in elegy. She points out that whenever the domina in elegy speaks, she does so in a manner meant “to destabilize” (Drinkwater, 32 ) and keep her lover interested. Judith P. Hallet’s “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy: Counter-Cultural Feminism” gives us an insight into the true meaning of the word domina–explaining that a domina describes a “‘woman in command of household slaves”’ and thus asserts that the domina has an intrinsically enslaving power (Hallet, 112 ). Christel Johnson’s “Mistress & Myth: Catullus 68,” asserts that domina appears closely linked to domus, and thus characterizes the woman in the sphere of the domus–proving men powerless in this realm.
Johnston also explains that in poem 68, line 136, Catullus calls Lesbia an era “mistress of slaves,” which further supports the claim that Catullus’s domina possesses a powerful enslaving capability. Adding onto the work of these scholars, I will examine how Catullus inflates both the beauty and the intelligence of his female beloved in order to justify his position as the servus amoris, “the servant of love.” The theme of domination by a strong, female beloved suggested by Catullus continues to have resonance in today’s sex work industry, especially as seen by men’s desire to seek Dominatrixes–women who take on the sadistic role of sadomasocistic sex.
Catullus 8 is a poem in which the poet encourages himself to obdura, to “man up,” and to forget Lesbia; however, the hyperbolic illustrations of his misery exemplify his role as the servus amoris.
Nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque impotens noli,
nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,
sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.
Vale puella, iam Catullus obdurat,
nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam.
At tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla. (9-14)
Now she no longer wants these things, you being powerless, must not want them either, and do not chase after the one who flees, don’t live as a miserable man, but endure and be firm with a resolute mind, be strong. Farewell girl, now Catullus is strong, he doesn’t require you and he will not ask out an unwilling person.
The poem is written in limping iambics (Garrison, 98 )which immediately allows the listener to recognize the pain, suffering, and defeat that Catullus is subject to because of the powerful Lesbia. Catullus repeats the word miser (along with its cognates) 42 times throughout the entire poem and this excessive usage results in the poem becoming characterized by a ridiculous sense of hyperbole. Although throughout the poem Catullus encourages himself to obdurat or be strong, the poem is riddled with claims of his miserableness and the obsessiveness of his love for Lesbia, suggesting he is either utterly failing in his effort to obdurat or actually does not genuinely want to succeed. The excessive use of miser supports the latter claim as it shows that Catullus is utterly obsessed with his miserableness. Furthermore, although miser can simply mean miserable, it also connote intense erotic love (Garrison, 98)which suggests that these two qualities–miserableness and infatuation–are intrinsically connected. Poem 8 exemplifies Catullus’s desire to be dominated by a powerful woman–his unending declarations of his misery and his lamentations of his absolute love for Lesbia illustrate an obsession with his role as the servus amoris.
Catullus 86, a poem in which Catullus compares the beauty of Lesbia to that of Quinta, explains how Catullus defines beauty: Lesbia formosa est, quae cum pulcherrima tota est, / tum omnibus una omnis surripuit Veneres. “Lesbia is beautiful, she is not only entirely beautiful, but she alone has stolen all the charms from everyone” (5-6).
Catullus employs Veneres to explain the reason for Lesbia’s beauty. Although Veneres is most logically translated as “charms,” we cannot ignore the obvious illusion Catullus is making to Venus–goddess of love, sex, and fertility. By employing Veneres here, Catullus paints Lesbia as goddess-like and thus both emphasizes her fantastic beauty as well as her immense power.
Similarly, he again casts Lesbia as a goddess in poem 68, calling her candida diua, “a beautiful goddess.” And also refers to Venus saying: “nam, mihi quam dederit duxplex Amathusia curam, / scitis, et in quo me torruerit genere” (68.51-52), “Well, you know the heartache that double-edged Venus has given to me and how she scorched me.”Duplex can mean both “treacherous;” “two-faced;” or “deceitful.” And as Johnson writes, “all these readings cast Venus as a dominating force who brings both dreadful and joyous events into the lover’s life” (151 ).His repeated illusions to Venus work both to illustrate a connection between pleasure and pain in Catullus’s eyes AND to overtly emphasize Lesbia’s magnificent beauty and seductive power. Catullus thereby aims to justify his role as the servus amoris–painting himself both as adoring of and subject to the immense power of goddess-like lover.
In poem 75, Catullus describes his vulnerability and weaknesses in his relationship.
Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa
atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,
ut iam nec bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias,
nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.
Now is my mind brought down to this point, my Lesbia, by your fault, and has so lost itself by its devotion, that now it cannot wish you well, were you to become most perfect, nor can it cease to love you, whatever you do. (1-4; Leonard C. Smithers )
Catullus’s claim that his mind has perdidit ipsa, “lost itself ” because of Lesbia serves as yet another example of the pain that his relationship has inflicted upon him. Even stronger than to lose, perdo can also signify to destroy, and thus Clark believes this passage to mean that Catullus’s “mind has been destroyed (perdidit) by doing its duty to her” (Clark 269).
Catullus next vows his eternal devotion for Lesbia, saying nec desistere amare, “nor can it cease to love you.” But avowing his love to Lesbia following his description of her destructive power, Catullus asserts that he is absolutely infatuated by her damaging ability. He concludes with a concession that typifies the powerless–omnia si facias, “whatever you do.” Despite the unending claims of the pain Catullus endures in his relationship with Lesbia, he cannot and will forever be unable to stop loving her–he is obsessed with her beauty, obsessed with her mind, obsessed with her power.
Throughout his works, Catullus paints himself as a miserable, lamentable, and destroyed man subject to the will and desires of the powerful Lesbia and thereby takes on the role of the servus amoris, a trope in which the elegist feigns inferiority and a servile position to bolster the power of his mistress. Despite all the claims of his pitifulness, he continues to love Lesbia regardless, proving that, despite all the supposed pain he endures, he continues to be infatuated with her and even enjoys suffering under her power.
Catullus’s desire to receive pain and to embrace his status as a servus amoris echoes the modern day desire for a Dominatrix. Instead of reading elegy as men who are trying to uplift women, we should understand that male sexual pleasure can be derived from creating, theorizing, and fantasizing a woman with such immense power. Elegy is often examined through a feminist canon because it seems to present a genre of literature in which women uniquely come off as powerful; however, studying elegy in comparison to the phenomena of a Dominatrix forces us to question the truthfulness of this power women seem to posses in their elegiac love affairs.
The conversation around whether the construction of a powerful, dominating woman is empowering remains very much alive today when we consider whether or not sex work is an industry that is inherently feminist. Interestingly, since elegy is written from the male perspective where we rarely–if ever–hear the woman’s voice, we are only able to understand the effect that this giving of female power has on the male perspective. We now hear the female voice from memoirs and articles written by Dominatrixes and it is interesting to examine the words of these women whose job titles and clients imagine them as strong and powerful.
An article by Melissa Febos, a woman who worked as a Dominatrix for three years, entitled “I Spent My Life Consenting to Touch I Didn’t Want,” explores the story of a woman who had a hard time deciding whether her work as a Dominatrix was inherently empowering or feminist. Febos writes that she felt “nothing” (Febos, NYT) after her sessions suggesting that her work didn’t instill her with the sense of power and domination that the name promises. Although, of course, Dominatrixes inevitably differ in their beliefs on whether their work is empowering, the narrative of Febos illustrates that for some, their work does not live up to its title–they are not transformed into all powerful dominas. Thus elegy’s portrayal of the female beloved as sadists perhaps can be explained through this phenomena of a desire for Dominatrix–the role that Lesbia assumes throughout Catullus’s poetry is not in fact an attempt to instill her with a powerful status, it is a Catullan tool to demonstrate his sexual desires and he never provides a glimpse of Lesbia’s reaction to being placed in this role of male-manufactured power.
Catullus and Lesbia, 1809 Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard (Museum: Nivaagaard Museum)
Bibliography
DRINKWATER, MEGAN O. “THE WOMAN’S PART: THE SPEAKING BELOVED IN ROMAN ELEGY.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 329–338., http://www.jstor.org/stable/23470088. Accessed 11 Feb. 2021.
Clark, Christina A. “The Poetics of Manhood? Nonverbal Behavior in Catullus 51.” Classical Philology, vol. 103, no. 3, 2008, pp. 257–281. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/596517. Accessed 28 Feb. 2021.
Hallett, Judith P. “THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN ROMAN ELEGY: COUNTER-CULTURAL FEMINISM.” Arethusa, vol. 6, no. 1, 1973, pp. 103–124. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26307466. Accessed 11 Feb. 2021.
JOHNSON, CHRISTEL. “MISTRESS AND MYTH: CATULLUS 68B.” The Classical Outlook, vol. 85, no. 4, 2008, pp. 151–154. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43939232. Accessed 16 Apr. 2021.
Catullus, Gaius Valerius, and Daniel H. Garrison. The Student’s Catullus. University of Oklahoma Press, 2012.
Catullus. The Carmina of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers. London. Smithers. 1894
Miller, Paul Allen. Latin Erotic Elegy. London, Routledge, 2002.
Plum Luard is a senior at Friends Seminary studying Latin, Ancient Greek, and Spanish. She is particularly fascinated by gendered power structures in elegy and the degree to which we can understand the elegists as feminists. Plum is passionate about translation—what is lost and what is elucidated. This is her first publication.
“You have to believe, by god, that he will be no better in the future after getting this judgment from you and will never stop taking bribes against you if you acquit him.”
“The crime was less offensive than the acquittal.”
Minus crimine quam absolutione peccatum est
Demosthenes, On the False Legation
“For your reputation, for your religion, for your safety, for every advantage you have, do not acquit this man—no, exact vengeance upon him to make him an example to everyone, to our citizens and to the rest of the world.”
“This is a domestic problem, in which sometimes it is enough to claim that there was only one crime, or it was just a mistake, or less severe than is claim for an acquittal”
Est enim domestica disceptatio, in qua et semel peccasse et per errorem et levius quam obiciatur absolutioni nonnumquam sufficit.
Dinarchus, Against Demosthenes 29
“Do not acquit this man, citizens, do not acquit and leave unpunished someone who has signed off on the misfortunes of this state and the world, a man who has been caught in corruption against the state….”
“Today you need to change your minds about what you have done. You need to refuse to keep being abused by these people. Don’t reproach those who have done wrong in private! Do not acquit the guilty when it is in your power to punish them.”
“You need to understand that it is impossible for you to acquit. If you ignore the charge when they admit that they are conspiring against the traders, then you will seem to make a judgment against the importers. If they were making up any other kind of defense, no one would criticize a vote to acquit since you can choose to believe whatever side you want. But, as things are now, you can’t imagine you are doing something amazing if you acquit unpunished those who admit that they broke the law!”
“Hey now, friend. If we put up with ourselves when we were talking about drinking and music, shouldn’t we dedicate the same energy when talking about the gods and these kinds of topics?
Really, this kind of talk is a big help to good law-making, I think, since proclamation about the law remained final when put down in words, as if they are presented for testing for all time so that even if they are hard to hear at the beginning no one needs to worry about it since it is permitted even for the slowest person to go back and read them often, even if they are long, as long as they are useful. That’s why I think that anyone who has any reason or is a bit righteous won’t hesitate to give his strength to such arguments.”
“But when someone in charge acts against both laws and customs, and claims like some genius that whatever is best should be done even against the written law and this desire and ignorance is driven by imitation, shouldn’t that kind of leader be called a Tyrant?
Yup.
So we can say that a tyrant comes to power–and a king, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or democracy, because people are not happy with one perfect monarch and do not believe that there even could be someone worthy of that kind of power, that they would be willing and capable of ruling with virtue and knowledge, distributing what is righteous and just to everyone correctly but instead suspecting them to insult and kill and harm whomever of us they want all the time.
Then, we agree that if such a person did exist, we would be in awe of them and invite them to live with us and run our affairs blissfully in a solely correct form of government.”
Ammianus Marcellinus, Constantius and Gallus 23-25
And since, as is natural in the world capital, the harsh diseases overpower so intensely that the profession of healing fails at treating them, the plan for safely is that no one will go to see a friend who suffers some disease like this. And some more cautious people add another salubrious remedy to this: slaves who have been sent to ask about the health of someone related to people who have this sickness are not allowed to enter the home before they have cleansed their body with a bath. This is how much they fear a sickness seen by other people.
But even when these practices are rather consistently performed, there are some people who, if they are invited to a wedding where gold might be offered to their open right hands, will run all the way to the Spoletium struggling, even though the strength of their limbs is weak from sickness.
But the mass of the poorest and lowest born people: some of them spend their entire nights in bars while some others haunt the shadows of the theater-awnings which Catullus during his aedileship was the first of all to have suspended as he emulated that Campanian corruption. Some of them play dice violently, sounding out foully when they draw air rapidly into their quivering nostrils; or, that thing they like most of all: they stand with their mouths agape from dawn to dusk in rain or shine analyzing the details of charioteers and the strengths and weaknesses of their horses.
And it is completely a surprise to see an uncountable crowd of plebians with a burning passion in their minds, hanging on what happens in the chariot races. These things and those like them allow nothing serious to happen at Rome.”
Et quoniam apud eos, ut in capite mundi, morborum acerbitates celsius dominantur, ad quos vel sedandos omnis professio medendi torpescit, excogitatum est adminiculum sospitale, nequi amicum perferentem similia videat, additumque est cautioribus paucis remedium aliud satis validum, ut famulos percontatum missos quem ad modum valeant noti hac aegritudine colligati, non ante recipiant domum, quam lavacro purgaverint corpus. Ita etiam alienis oculis visa metuitur Iabes.
Sed tamen haec cum ita tutius observentur, quidam vigore artuum imminuto, rogati ad nuptias, ubi aurum dextris manibus cavatis offertur, impigre vel usque Spoletium pergunt. Haec nobilium sunt instituta.
Ex turba vero imae sortis et paupertinae, in tabernis aliqui pernoctant vinariis, non nulli sub velabris umbraculorum theatralium latent, quae, Campanam imitatus lasciviam, Catulus in aedilitate sua suspendit omnium primus; aut pugnaciter aleis certant, turpi sono fragosis naribus introrsum reducto spiritu concrepantes; aut quod est studiorum omnium maximum ab ortu lucis ad vesperam sole fatiscunt vel pluviis, per minutias aurigarum equorumque praecipua vel delicta scrutantes.
Et est admodum mirum videre plebem innumeram, mentibus ardore quodam infuso, e dimicationum curulium eventu pendentem. Haec similiaque memorabile nihil vel serium agi Romae permittunt. Ergo redeundum ad textum.
Pottery floor tile incised with lines for use as a game board, with various bone game counters, excavated from Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). Reading Museum.
“The storyteller records myths in the sixth book too. There he has Apollonios, conveyed on a camel in a group of friends to those he names the Naked Philosophers of Egypt. There, he claims, commanded by the Naked One, an elm tree addresses Apollonios in a “clever and feminine voice” and the Truth-lover thinks we are going to believe this!
Then he tells of Pygmies who live below them, Human-flesh eating Men, The Shadow-Feet and a satyr Apollonios got drunk. Then he goes back to Greece where he shares sermons and prophecies with Titus. When a rabid dog bites a young man, he figures out whose soul it possessed and that it had once belonged to Amassis, king of Egypt, and by doing so frees the boy of a disease and does the dog a favor too.”
