In carm. 55, Catullus supposes his friend Camerius may be caught in erotic adventure:
The general sense of lines 18–19 is sufficiently clear: ‘If you do not talk, you will give up all benefits of your love affair.’ But what exactly are fructus amoris referring to? Commentators would fairly unanimously equate the expression with gaudia uenerea, sexual pleasure, as suggested by Lucr. 4.1073 nec Veneris fructu caret is qui uitat amorem, Prop. 3.20.30 semper amet, fructu semper amoris egens, and Ov. Rem. am. 103 delectat Veneris decerpere fructum, plus a handful of later occurrences.Footnote 2 This, however, was deemed inexact already in the nineteenth century by K. Rossberg,Footnote 3 who went on to paraphrase ‘aller Genuss, der aus der Liebe entspringt’ (my italics); and on a still closer look, any such interpretation seems to be precluded by proicies and omnes. Whether understood in a narrower sense or more broadly, Camerius’ joys would, at least partly, lie in the past and could by no conceivable means be ‘lost completely’ anymore.Footnote 4
Assuming hyperbole of some kind might offer an expedient,Footnote 5 but Catullus had, I suggest, something considerably more specific in mind. To the fiery love poet, worthy fruits to be reaped from love would first of all be—love poems; a love affair either prompts new song, or has to be considered an opportunity wasted. In this sense, Camerius will indeed ‘lose all fruits of love’ if he ‘remains silent’.Footnote 6
The curious idea of poetry as the ultimate purpose of life's vicissitudes is as old as Homeric epic. When, in a situation not unlike Catullus’ in carm. 55, the Phaeacian king Alcinous tries to break Odysseus’ long silence and make him relate his adventures, his argument bears similarity to Catullus’: θεοὶ […] ἐπεκλώσαντο δ᾽ ὄλεθρον | ἀνθρώποις, ἵνα ᾖσι καὶ ἐσσομένοισιν ἀοιδή (Od. 8.579–80)—the purpose of divinely ordained destruction is heroic song. Concerning erotic poetry in particular, Catullus may have recalled a quotation from Euripides’ Stheneboea which appears to have become proverbial almost immediately: ποιητὴν δ᾽ ἄρα | Ἔρως διδάσκει, κἂν ἄμουσος ᾖ τὸ πρίν (TrGF Eur. fr. 663).Footnote 7 Aristophanes (Vesp. 1074) and Plato (Symp. 196e2–3) simply need to quote the protasis κἂν ἄμουσος ᾖ τὸ πρίν verbatim in order to evoke Euripides’ lines, and the thought recurs many times in later authors, either repeating or modifying the original wording.Footnote 8 Hellenistic poets were especially creative in making their sense of it. A famous example of an ἄμουσος-lover-turned-poet is Theocritus’ Polyphemus in the eleventh Idyll, and, in this case, interaction between real life and love poetry becomes reciprocal, since first of all the Cyclops’ composition of a poem assuages his unhappy love (Id. 11.1–4, 80–1):
The opposite, ‘Euripidean’, direction was nevertheless noticed and remarked upon already by the Idyll’s addressee Nicias, a physician from Miletus, the first two lines of whose response are transmitted by the scholia on Theocritus: ἦν ἄρ᾽ ἀληθὲς τοῦτο, Θεόκριτε· οἱ γὰρ Ἔρωτες | ποιητὰς πολλοὺς ἐδίδαξαν τοὺς πρὶν ἀμούσους (SH 566). Euripides’ fragment may also have occurred to Callimachus in Epigr. 46 Pf., generally believed to be ‘an imitation of or reaction to Theocritus’ poem’,Footnote 10 whether independently or inspired by Nicias: ὡς ἀγαθὰν Πολύφαμος ἀνεύρατο τὰν ἐπαοιδάν | τὠραμένῳ· ναὶ Γᾶν, οὐκ ἀμαθὴς ὁ Κύκλωψ (Anth. Pal. 12.150.1–2 = Gow-Page, HE 1047–8), and possibly once again in his Acontius and Cydippe: αὐτὸς Ἔρως ἐδίδαξεν Ἀκόντιον, ὁππότε καλῇ | ᾔθετο Κυδίππῃ παῖς ἐπὶ παρθενικῇ, | τέχνην—οὐ γὰρ ὅγ᾿ ἔσκε πολύκροτος […] (Aet. 67.1–3 Pf.); both ἀμαθής (Epigr. 46.2) and οὐ πολύκροτος (Aet. 67.3) seem to echo Euripides’ ἄμουσος.Footnote 11 Given the quick and widespread acquaintance of later Greek authors with Euripides’ idea of Eros as instigator of love song, and taking into account its colourful Hellenistic afterlife, there is little doubt that Catullus must have been familiar with it, too. His fructus amoris may well be another variation on the theme.
It is pertinent to note that also munera Veneris in Catull. 68.10 have been understood as ‘love poems’; see especially Skinner's discussion of the line.Footnote 12 Just as for the above understanding of fructus amoris, there seem to be no direct parallels, but Skinner is certainly right in stating that ‘the lack of other examples of this particular usage proves little, since Catullus was capable of employing old words in a new sense when occasion required’.Footnote 13 Additionally, our knowledge about this particular occasion happens to be, as Kiss emphasizes,Footnote 14 quite incomplete, since we do not know the precise requests Catullus is replying to in carm. 68; nor do we have any background information about the events preceding composition of carm. 55 or about Catullus’ relationship with Camerius. If the two instances were allowed to be seen as supporting each other, my interpretation of fructus amoris would not even postulate a genuinely isolated usage.
The paradosis of the last lines, often doubted, would perhaps also gain a sharper point: ‘then again, if you wish, you may as well keep silent; just make sure you read my poems’ (21–2).Footnote 15 Mynors, Fordyce and ThomsonFootnote 16 (among others) print uestri sim in 22; sim comes from a group of later manuscripts, therefore being no more than an early conjecture to restore sense, while the variants nostri (varia lectio noted by R2) and uestri (OGR1) may have coexisted in the archetype.Footnote 17 Even if they did not, variation between noster and uester, requiring in compendious script no more than a change between n and u, is common enough in Catullus.Footnote 18 Kroll, when hesitatinglyFootnote 19 printing nostri sis, seemed troubled about the sudden change in thought: ‘nostri sis, worauf die Überlieferung zu führen scheint, bringt den ganz fremden Gedanken herein, daß Camerius an C.s Liebe teilnehmen soll.’ Already the preceding line, however, amounts to a full reversal of the poet's earlier begging, thus preparing for an inversion of the direction of participation in the last line. When, in a surprise twist at the end of the poem, Catullus gives himself away, we come to understand that he pleaded for his friend's return and confession not so much for Camerius’ sake as for his own: ‘Well, maybe you really do not need my attention after all—but I need yours!’Footnote 20
