The first hint of any rift in the loves of Catullus and Clodia is contained in the 68th poem, written in the form of a letter to Manlius[35]—
Quare, quod scribis Veronae turpe Catullo, etc.
Catullus had retired to Verona on hearing of the death of his brother, and he was for a time so overwhelmed with grief as to become indifferent both to poetry and love. He is as sincere and unreserved in the expression of his grief as of his former happiness, and as completely absorbed by it. He writes to Hortensius, enclosing, in fulfilment of an old promise, a translation of the 'Coma Berenices' of Callimachus, but at the same time expressing his loss of all interest in poetry owing to his recent affliction,—
Etsi me adsiduo confectum cura dolore
Sevocat a doctis, Ortale, virginibus, etc.
In his letter to Manlius, in which he excuses himself on the same ground for not sending any poetry of his own, and for not complying with his request to send him some volumes of Greek poetry, on the ground that his collection of books was at Rome, he notices, with a feeling almost of hopeless indifference, a hint conveyed to him by Manlius, of his mistress' faithlessness[36]. In the poem written somewhat later to Allius,—
Non possum reticere deae qua me Allius in re, etc.—
in which his grief is still fresh but more subdued, and in which the full tide of his old passion, as well as his old delight in his art, returns to him, he speaks lightly of her occasional infidelities,—
Quae tamen etsi uno non est contenta Catullo
Rara verecundae furta feremus erae.