Catullus 67

Question 1

What is Catullus 67 about?

Answer 1

Catullus talking to the door about the family situations of the house.

Question 2

What type of poem is this?

Answer 2

Plaraklausithyron

Question 3

What does Catullus say to the door in line 1?

Answer 3

O door, nice to a sweet man, nice to a parent, hello

Question 4

What might the door receive?

Answer 4

and may Jupiter increase you with good help

Question 5

Who else received good help from Jupiter?

Answer 5

Which they say once served Balbus well,

Question 6

When did Balbus receive good help?

Answer 6

When the old man himself owned the house, which they say again served his son badly

Question 7

Who is Balbus’ son?

Answer 7

Caecilius

Question 8

What is the relationship of the door to the house?

Answer 8

after you were made a married door when the old man was stretched out.

Question 9

What does Catullus wish to learn from the door?

Answer 9

Come on, tell us why you are said to be changed

Question 10

Why has the door said to have been changed?

Answer 10

To have abandoned loyalty for your old master

Question 11

What does the door say when Catullus questions his loyalty?

Answer 11

Its not my fault although it is said to be mine!

Question 12

Why did the door switch his loyalty to?

Answer 12

May I thus Caecilius whose I now am

Question 13

Why does the door believe about his actions?

Answer 13

nor can anyone say that any wrong was done by me

Question 14

Why is the door innocent?

Answer 14

The truth of this people the door who makes you,
who whenever something not made well is found
everyone shouts to me: door it’s your fault!

Question 15

How does Catullus respond to the door’s despair about his changed loyalty?

Answer 15

It’s not enough for you to say it with one word.

Question 16

Why shouldn’t the door say it in one word?

Answer 16

But you should make it so anyone can feel or see it.

Question 17

Why does the door believe that his cries are hopeless?

Answer 17

What can I do? Nobody asks nor works to know?

Question 18

Who listens to the door when he believes nobody will?

Answer 18

We want: don’t hesitate to tell us

Question 19

Once persuaded, how does the door begin the story?

Answer 19

First therefore, that she was handed over to us a virgin, is false

Question 20

Why is the girl not a virgin?

Answer 20

Her husband didn’t touch her first,

Question 21

Why didn’t the husband touch the girl first?

Answer 21

Whose dagger, hanging more limp than a gentle beetroot
never raised itself the middle of his tunic;

Question 22

What happened when the husband couldn’t get an erection?

Answer 22

But his father is said to have violated his son’s bedroom
and to have polluted the wretched home

Question 23

Why did the father have sex with his daughter in law?

Answer 23

Either because his unholy mind blazes with blind love
Or because his impotent son had sterile seed

Question 24

How did the father respond to his son’s sterile seed?

Answer 24

So someone of greater never had to be found of it
who could open the girls belt

Question 25

How did people react to the father's sex with his daughter in law?

Answer 25

You tell of an amazing father of wonderful piety.

Question 26

Why wasn't the father so wonderful as portrayed?

Answer 26

Who himself pissed in his son's lap.

Question 27

How did Brixia find the event?

Answer 27

And Brixia says that she not only has knowledge of herself

Question 28

Who is Brixia?

Answer 28

The girl.

Question 29

Where is Brixia's knowledge kept?

Answer 29

Placed below the Cycneae cave which golden Mella runs through with its stream

Question 30

What is Mella?

Answer 30

The name of the river

Question 31

How does the door portray Brixia?

Answer 31

Brixia, beloved mother of my Verona (sarcasm)

Question 32

What else does Brixia have knowledge of with knowledge of herself?

Answer 32

But she also tells of love with Postumus and Cornelius with whom she committed evil adultery

Question 33

Who are Postumus and Cornelius?

Answer 33

Roman politicians

Question 34

What might some say to the door at his accusations of Brixia of adultery?

Answer 34

Someone might say here; what door, how do you know this?

Question 35

Why (according to others) might the door not know about the events in the house?

Answer 35

You aren't allowed to leave your master's threshold, nor listen to the people,

Question 36

Why can't the door leave his threshold?

Answer 36

But fixed to a frame

Question 37

What can the door do whilst he is fixed to a frame?

Answer 37

You are only accustomed to open and close the home?

Question 38

How does the door know about Brixia?

Answer 38

I have often heard her talking in a quite voice, alone to her slave women about these crimes

Question 39

What did Brixia say to her slave women?

Answer 39

Naming those we said, as she hoped that they had neither tongue nor ear

Question 40

Who is the final person Brixia had adultery with?

Answer 40

Meanwhile, she added someone, who I don't want to say by name,

Question 41

Why can't the door tell Catullus who the final person is?

Answer 41

Lest he raise his red eyebrows

Question 42

But how does the door describe the final man?

Answer 42

He is a tall man, against whom someone brought great cases once, about a false childbirth from a lying womb.

Question 43

O dulci iucunda viro, iucunda parenti stylist features

Answer 43

O = he's speaking to the door dulci = sweet, personification of the door iucunda.... iucunda... = repetition

Question 44

servisse benigne // olim, stylist features

Answer 44

enjambement

Question 45

cum sedes ipse senex tenuit stylist features

Answer 45

sibilance = to make it sound like they are whispering about the gossip of the house Sedes = seats as a metonym for the house

Question 46

dicunt servisse benigne ... gnato servisse maligne. stylist features

Answer 46

Opposite repetition of adjective with servisse Gnato = archaic word for son, to fit with the older style of poem

Question 47

porrecto facta marita sene. stylist features

Answer 47

porrecto = stretched out, metaphor for death marita = personification of door being married

Question 48

dic agemdum nobis stylist features

Answer 48

colloquial = come on tell us! Referring to us, inputs the audience into the story

Question 49

Non ita Caecilio stylist features

Answer 49

Emphatic first position of No, contrasted by the rest of the phrase being on the next line, this distortion symbolises the doors despair = disjointed syntax door is speaking = personificaiton

Question 50

quisquam pote digère quiquam stylist features

Answer 50

polyptoton

Question 51

Qui quacumque aliquid stylist features

Answer 51

q alliteration for angry bursts

Question 52

nos volmus nobis dicrere ne dubita stylist features

Answer 52

Murmarance for seriousness, as the audience wants to learn

Question 53

Seu quod iners sterili semine natus erat stylist features

Answer 53

Sibilance when talking about his sterile seed

Question 54

Egregium narras mira pietate parentum stylist features

Answer 54

Sarcasm about the amazing father Polisve alliteration of p to emphasise sarcasm

Question 55

Minxerit stylist features

Answer 55

Piss, vulgar swearing and idiom

Question 56

Where does Brixia live?

Answer 56

She lives in Verona where Catullus lived

Question 57

What is the Cyncea cave?

Answer 57

Where the citadel was placed.

Question 58

Brixia Veronae mater amata meae stylist features

Answer 58

Sarcasm

Question 59

tantum operire soles aut aperire domum? stylist features

Answer 59

Operire and Aperire = open and close = antithesis

Question 60

linguam esse nec auriculam stylist features

Answer 60

The girl hopes the girls will have no tongue and ear which is a metaphor/metonym for won't tell anyone