The subject of this article was suggested by the question of whether the present tense form uĕnit in Catull. 64.85 should be considered anomalous. My analysis will result in a positive answer, and I shall conclude by proposing a way to eliminate this anomaly. However, a study of Catullus' use of the historical present may also be of some relevance for the interpretation of poem 64 as a whole.

The meaning and uses of the present, in particular the historical present, in Latin evade simple classification. This has led some scholars to conclude that the Latin present is a neutral, atemporal tense, which can replace the past tense in an unmarked way.Footnote ¹  In Virgil, for instance, as von Albrecht argues, ‘the historic present is the rule’ and accordingly ‘it is not the present that needs explanation […], but the rarer phenomenon, the historic perfect’.Footnote ²  While von Albrecht's observation of the frequency of the historical present in the Aeneid is no doubt correct, Pinkster justly rejects the idea that the historical present can freely replace the past tenses either in Virgil or elsewhere.Footnote ³  Instead, Pinkster restates the traditional view that the present has a specific semantic value of its own: ‘presenting a state of affairs as contemporaneous with the speech situation’.Footnote ⁴

This basic meaning of the Latin present can sufficiently account for how the historical present is employed in Catullus 64. In narratological terms, when the historical present is used, Catullus can be said to focalize the narration through the eyes of someone witnessing the events as they take place. I propose to show that all instances of temporal focalization in Catullus 64 (that is, when the perspective of the focalizer is different from that of the narrator) are tied to one particular moment of time, the wedding day of Peleus and Thetis.

As is natural to expect, the narrator belongs to Catullus' contemporary world: this appears to be implied by quondam at line 1 and is made explicit in the last two lines which refer to the present day in the present tense (407–8),Footnote ⁵  in contrast to the heroic past for which past forms are used (384–406).Footnote ⁶  Three apostrophes (22–30, 71–5, 94–102) and a praeteritio (116–23), in which the narrator's personal voice erupts, are thus closely connected to the performative setting; accordingly, only perfect forms are used to refer to past events.Footnote ⁷  The speeches of Ariadne (132–201) and Aegeus (215–37) and the song of the Parcae (323–81) feature no instances of the historical present. This leaves us with two storylines: the outer line centred around Peleus and Thetis and the inner line focussed on Ariadne and Theseus. In either line, as we shall see, events are presented from two different perspectives. Let us start with the external narrative.

From the very opening of the poem all finite forms are in the perfect tense, until the moment when the account of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis begins (1–32).Footnote ⁸  In this opening section the narration is focalized from the perspective of a performative setting situated in Catullus' contemporary world. Apart from the consistent use of past verb-forms, there are other indications that this is the case. First, the events are explicitly ascribed to the past (1 quondam). Second, as noted above, by its very form the apostrophe addressed to the Argonauts (22–30) pinpoints the narrative perspective to the moment of performance. Third, references to hearsay (2 dicuntur, 19 fertur) likewise imply, with their present-tense forms, a temporal setting different from that of the narrated events (note the dependent perfect infinitives 2 nasse and 19 incensus [sc. esse]). Perhaps more importantly, these references make it clear that the narrator has no first-hand knowledge of the story, but relies on the authority of others; he thus additionally distances himself from the events he is narrating.Footnote ⁹

As the wedding day arrives, the narration suddenly switches to the present tense (32–51).Footnote ¹⁰  This cluster of historical presents marks the focal point of the narration. Whereas the preceding events were only mentioned by way of a prologue and, as a consequence, in the perfect, now the narrator shapes his account almost as a live coverage of the wedding. Now he describes what he is seeing—or rather imagines himself to be seeing—with his own eyes. At 52 the ecphrasis with the Ariadne and Theseus story interrupts the outer narrative line, which is resumed at 265 but now in the past tense (265–77).Footnote ¹¹  In fact, as we shall see, the change of narrative tense takes place within the ecphrasis. It can be explained, I suggest, by the decline of the narrator's emotional involvement with the events he is telling. This progress from eager excitement at the beginning of the wedding to satiated detachment at the end is, in fact, what the human guests experience (267–8 quae postquam cupide spectando Thessala pubes | expleta est, sanctis coepit decedere diuis). In other words, the narrative is apparently focalized from the perspective of mortals present at the reception.

This is confirmed by the next change in narrative mode. As the last human guests take their leave at 277, gods start arriving: the predominant narrative tense is now the perfect,Footnote ¹²  but two present forms intrude (278–302).Footnote ¹³  However, their stylistic effect now is notably different from that of the present-tense cluster at 32–51. There the narrator was describing an ongoing event (hence present forms could be followed by imperfect forms); here he records a sequence of facts (thus present forms alternate with perfect forms: 279 aduēnit Chiron, 285 confestim Peneos adest, 294 post hunc consequitur … Prometheus, 298–9 inde pater diuum … aduēnit).Footnote ¹⁴  The final scene of the banquet—the Parcae singing an epithalamium—is entirely narrated in the past tense.Footnote ¹⁵

To sum up: for the account of the wedding day the narrator can use either present or past forms, whereas the events preceding it are told exclusively in the perfect tense. The explanation for this is that, while the narrator implicitly claims to have attended the wedding party, he relies for the details of the Argonautic expedition on the authority of others.

The same two narrative perspectives can likewise be found in the inner storyline developed in the ecphrasis (52–264). The ecphrasis opens in the historical present (52–65),Footnote ¹⁶  taken over from the preceding account of the wedding celebration (32–51); but at some point it is replaced by the imperfect (66–70).Footnote ¹⁷  As suggested above, this switch from the present to the imperfect is caused by the decline of the narrator's emotional involvement with the story: at first, he narrates what he actually sees, as it were; then, what he remembers seeing. Having thus returned to a more distanced perspective, the narrator can interrupt the description of the coverlet with a historical digression (71–248). When the ecphrasis proper is resumed, it is again in the imperfect tense (249–64).Footnote ¹⁸  And just as at the beginning of the ecphrasis present forms bridge the transition from the account of the wedding day, so at its end the past tense is taken up in the outer narrative.

As is emphasized by Traill, ‘[i]t is in these sections [52–70 and 249–64], and these sections only, that the scenes embroidered on the coverlet are described’.Footnote ¹⁹  In contrast to the description of what could actually be seen on the coverlet, the embedded narrative, explaining and complementing the embroidery, is carried out consistently in the past tense, mainly the perfect (71–248).Footnote ²⁰  (The only exception, in the accepted text, is uĕnit at 85.) Just as in the prologue, the events are explicitly ascribed to the past (olim at 76 and 212). The digression also resembles the prologue in that it hosts two apostrophes (71–5 and 94–102), as well as a praeteritio (116–23: note especially 117 commemorem, referring to the act of performance). But, most significantly, the use of past forms is here accompanied, again just as in the prologue, by references to external authorities (76 perhibent, 124 perhibent, 212 ferunt). This shows that, whereas for the scenes explicitly attributed to the coverlet the narrator relies on autopsy, for the digression he uses information from other sources.

It has been suggested that the setting of the wedding celebration in Catullus 64 is modelled on that of the Adonia in Theocritus 15; in particular, both feature pieces of decorated cloth.Footnote ²¹  Yet, in contrast to the extended Catullan ecphrasis, in Theocritus a character only manages to describe the representation of Adonis reclining on a silver couch before she is stopped (84–6). However, a hymn that follows supplies more details on both the Adonis myth and the festival setting (100–46). The tapestry and the hymn are thus clearly intended to parallel and supplement each other (note also that they are admired in similar terms: 83 σοφόν τι χρῆμ’ ἄνθρωπος, 145 τὸ χρῆμα σοφώτατον ἁ θήλεια). In other words, at the festival described in Theocritus' idyll the Adonis myth was presented through two different kinds of medium, visual and verbal. The ecphrasis and the embedded narrative digression in Catullus 64, both of which focus on Ariadne and Theseus, are no doubt more closely interrelated, but, I suggest, the idea of a story presented through a combination of two different media may have been inspired by Theocritus. It seems therefore no coincidence that the very first line of the Adonis hymn in Theocritus (100 δέσποιν’, ἃ Γολγώς τε καὶ Ἰδάλιον ἐφίλησας) is imitated by Catullus in an apostrophe that is part of the narrative digression (96 quaeque regis Golgos quaeque Idalium frondosum).Footnote ²²  Perhaps it is too much to speculate that Catullus invites the reader to imagine a poetic performance accompanying the display of the coverlet as the implied point of reference of perhibent and ferunt, but the Theocritean model does provide additional support for taking the ecphrasis proper and the digression as focalized from two distinct narrative perspectives. In the former, the narrator tells what he saw at the wedding; in the latter, what he heard in an unspecified context.

To recapitulate: in Catullus 64 the narrator only uses the historical present for what he can claim to have seen with his own eyes (and this is what he could witness during the wedding reception); those events for which he relies on the authority of others he narrates exclusively in the past tense.Footnote ²³  The only exception to that rule is the present form uĕnit at 85 magnanimum ad Minoa uenit sedesque superbas.

This anomaly, I suggest, can be eliminated by changing Minoa to a disyllabic accusative form, either Minon or Mino, which will produce the perfect tense uēnit.Footnote ²⁴  True, neither form is securely attested elsewhere in classical Latin,Footnote ²⁵  but a Homeric precedent would probably have provided a sufficient excuse for Catullus to write Minon or Mino: Il. 14.322 ἣ τέκε μοι Μίνω [Μίνων] τε καὶ ἀντίθεον Ῥαδάμανθυν. While the majority of manuscripts read Μίνω (supported by Zenodotus), the scholia report that Μίνων was preferred by Aristarchus, as well as pointing out that this is an Attic form (the T scholia: Zηνόδοτος ‘Μίνω’, Ἀρίσταρχος ‘Μίνων’ Ἀττικῶς).Footnote ²⁶  In his copy of Homer, Catullus would probably have found Μίνω, but it also seems likely that he would have been familiar with Hellenistic Homeric scholarship, in particular with Aristarchus' variant. Which form would Catullus choose? It is difficult to be certain, but there are reasons why he might prefer Minon. First, because of its ending, it is more readily recognizable as an accusative. Second, it is a learned Homeric variant that has the authority of Aristarchus behind it. Third, it was considered an Atticism, which may not be irrelevant in a context speaking of Theseus: this is the form that Theseus himself would have used, as it were.Footnote ²⁷  Finally, Bücheler may have been right to argue that at Ciris 132 (o nimium cupidis †si non† inhiasset ocellis) the corrupted reading should be restored as Minon rather than Minoa proposed earlier by Lachmann.Footnote ²⁸  If Minon is indeed what the Ciris poet wrote at 132, Bücheler's conjecture Minon may also be right at 367 (essent qui generum Minoa auctoribus extis), which would thus provide a parallel for the corruption of Minon to Minoa.Footnote ²⁹  Bücheler observed: ‘imitatur in multis Catullum is qui Cirim composuit, in hoc recessisse videtur a Catullo qui fecerat ad Minoa uenit sedesque superbas'.Footnote ³⁰  As it turns out, the Ciris poet may have followed Catullus in using the form Minon, too.