We are naturally led to compare with Catullus, the efforts of his own countrymen, particularly those of Ovid and Virgil, in portraying the agonies of deserted nymphs and princesses. Both these poets have borrowed largely from their predecessor. Ovid has treated the subject of Ariadne not less than four times. In the epistle of Ariadne to Theseus, he has painted, like Catullus, her disordered person—her sense of desertion, and remembrance of the benefits she had conferred on Theseus: But the epistle is a cold production, chiefly because her grief is not immediately presented before us; and she merely tells that she had wept, and sighed, and raved. The minute detail, too, into which she enters, is inconsistent with her vehement passion. She recollects too well each heap of sand which retarded her steps, and the thorns on the summit of the mountain. Returning from her wanderings, she addresses her couch, of which she asks advice, till she becomes overpowered by apprehension for the wild beasts and marine monsters, of which she presents her false lover with a faithful catalogue. The simple ideas of Catullus are frequently converted into conceits, and his natural bursts of passion, into quibbles and artificial points. In the eighth book of the Metamorphoses, the melancholy part of Ariadne’s story is only recalled, in order to introduce the transformation of her crown into a star. In the third book of the Fasti, she deplores the double desertion of Theseus and Bacchus. It is in the first book of the Art of Love, that Ovid approaches nearest to Catullus, particularly in the sudden contrast between the solitude and melancholy of Ariadne, and the revelry of the Bacchanalians. Some of Virgil’s imitations of Catullus have been already pointed out: But part of the complaint of Dido is addressed to her betrayer, and contains a bitterness of sarcasm, and eloquence of reproof, which neither Catullus nor Ovid could reach.
The desertion of Olimpia by Bireno, related in the tenth canto of the Orlando Furioso, has, in its incidents at least, a [pg 309]strong resemblance to the poem of Catullus. Bireno, Duke of Zealand, while on a voyage from Holland to his own country, touches on Frisia; and, being smit with love for Olimpia, daughter of the king, carries her off with him; but, in the farther progress of the voyage, he lands on a desert island, and, while Olimpia is asleep, he leaves her, and sets sail in the darkness of night. Olimpia awakes, and, finding herself alone, hurries to the beach, and then ascends a rock, whence she descries, by light of the moon, the departing sail of her lover. Here, and afterwards while in her tent, she pours forth her plaints against the treachery of Bireno. In the details of this story, Ariosto has chiefly copied from Ovid; but he has also availed himself of several passages in Catullus. As Ariosto, in his story of Olimpia, principally chose Ovid for his model, so Tasso, in that of Armida, seems chiefly to have kept his eye on Virgil and Catullus. But Armida is not like Ariadne, an injured and innocent maid, nor a stately queen, like Dido; but a voluptuous and artful magician,
—— “Che nella doglia amara
Gia tutte non obblia l’arte e le frodi.”
It has been mentioned, that the desertion of Ariadne was represented on one compartment of the coverlet of the nuptial couch of Peleus—on another division of it the story of Bacchus and Ariadne was exhibited. The introduction of Bacchus and his train closes the episode with an animated picture, and forms a pleasing contrast to the melancholy scenes that precede it. At the same time, the poet, delicately breaking off without even hinting at the fair one’s ready acceptance of her new lover, leaves the pity we feel for her abandonment unweakened on the mind.
65. Ad Ortalum. This is the first of the elegies of Catullus, and indeed the earliest of any length or celebrity which had hitherto appeared in the Latin language. Elegies were originally written by the Greeks in alternate hexameter and pentameter lines, “versibus impariter junctis.” This measure, which was at first appropriated to deplore misfortunes, particularly the loss of friends, was soon employed to complain of unsuccessful love, and, by a very easy transition, to describe the delights of gratified passion:
—— “Querimonia primùm,
Post etiam inclusa est voti sententia compos.”
Matters were in this state in the age of Mimnermus, who was contemporary with Solon, and was the most celebrated elegiac [pg 310]poet of the Greeks. Hence, from his time every poem in that measure, whatever was the subject, came to be denominated elegy. The mixed species of verse, however, was always considered essential, so that the complaint of Bion on the death of Adonis, or that of Moschus on the loss of Bion, is hardly accounted such, being written in a different sort of measure. In the strict acceptation of the term, scarcely any Greek elegy has descended to us entire, except perhaps a few lines by Callimachus on the death of Heraclitus.
This elegy of Catullus may be considered as a sort of introduction to that which follows it. Hortalus, to whom it is addressed, had requested him to translate from Callimachus the poem De Coma Berenices. He apologizes for the delay which had taken place in complying with the wishes of his friend, on account of the grief he had experienced from the premature death of his brother, for whom he bursts forth into this pathetic lamentation:—