Main Text
Editor’s NoteEditor’s Note75
- Editor’s Note Link 1 Hvc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa
- Editor’s Note2 atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,
- Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus3 ut iam nec bene uelle queat tibi, si optima fias,
- Editor’s Note4 nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.
Editor’s Note
The mood of disillusioned resignation is like that of 72 and Catullus repeats his pathetic paradox. He must still love Lesbia whatever her sins: he cannot have regard for her though she turn saint.
Editor’s Note
1. huc est … deducta … ut : 'my mind has been brought to the point that', of an unwelcome necessity; cf. Val. Max. viii. 1. abs. 6 'satis iam graues eum poenas sociis dedisse arbitrati sunt huc deductum necessitatis ut abicere se tam suppliciter … cogeretur'.*
Editor’s Note
75. 1. deducta: cf. Cic. Att. ii. 18. 2 'universa res eo est deducta spes ut nulla sit'.
Editor’s Note
mea has usually been taken with Lesbia; in spite of his disillusionment she is still mea to Catullus, as she was in 5. 1; so in the bitter 11. 15 she is still mea puella. But mens needs the epithet and the juxtaposition of tua mea is more effective so.
Editor’s Note
2. se officio perdidit … suo : 'brought itself to disaster by its own devotion': Ovid makes a similar point in Am. iii. 3. 38 (of Semele) 'officio est illi poena reperta suo'.
Critical Apparatus
75. 3 uelle queat Lachmann (queam θ): uelleque tot V
Editor’s Note
3 f. bene uelle … amare : cf. 72. 8.
Editor’s Note
4. omnia si facias : 'though you should do anything', i.e. stop at nothing, do the worst imaginable.