Rhythmical Factors in Catullus 72, 75, and 85

CATULLUS' ELEGIAC VERSE is predominantly spondaic. He has dactyls in only 37 per cent of the variable feet (that is, in the first four feet of the hexameter and the first two of the pentameter), as against 44 per cent in Propertius, 48 per cent in Tibullus, and 57 per cent in Ovid.1 This being so, predominantly dactylic passages or couplets stand out, and invite the assumption that some special effect is intended. It is the purpose of this article to pursue this assumption with reference to three of the shorter poems. This may be purely a question of art, in that a good poet is likely to assimilate rhythm to content; but it may also be relevant to interpretation, as one of the keys to the tone or emotional level of passages where the tone or emotional level is in doubt. There are three couplets in Catullus, all of them in the longer elegies, where the variable feet are wholly dactylic, and various explanations can be offered for the dactylic rhythm in these three places.2 But I wish rather to concentrate on the most dactylic of the epigrams, namely poems 75 and 85.3 Each of these has dactyls in 67 per cent of the variable feet, which is almost twice as many as Catullus' average, and it seems reasonable to see this as significant. Now it would be generally agreed that these two poems are part of a sequence of poems which includes also poem 72, and that this sequence represents Catullus' attempt to express, or formulate, the conflict of emotions which is epitomized in the phrase odi et amo.4 So the obvious areas in which to look for an explanation of the

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