Catullus 97 Translation
Introduction
This is another poem that many readers find offensive. In it, Catullus** writes about a disgusting person named Aemilius.** The first two lines make the reader wonder where Catullus is going with this because he says it doesn’t matter if he sniffed the man’s head or ass. But, he isn’t really going to do it as we find out in the next few lines. Catullus says that Aemilius’s ass might smell better and is smarter than his head.
In lines five and six, Catullus mentions how Aemilius’s anus is better than his mouth because it has no teeth, and his teeth are “half a yard long” with gums like an old cart frame. This man is thoroughly repulsive. The gums have gapes in them that are like a “mule’s vagina as she urinates.” Catullus’s insults are on-par with Shakespeare’s, and Catullus’s came first.
Surprisingly, this repulsive man has sex with “many a woman” as well learn in line nine. He is charming, but Catullus wonders how women have not passed him over and selected the donkey at the grinding mill instead. Catullus then insults the women who chose him, saying that they would be capable of “licking the anus of a sick hangman” in line 12.
There is no subtlety to this poem. Aemilius is as disgusting as a dead man who is hanging and the tone of this poem is truthful, not mocking or sarcastic. There is nothing lighthearted or funny in it. Catullus does not like the gap in Aemilius’s mouth, and he must smell awful. There are other poems where Catullus insults the way that some men smell. Culturally, it had to be important for men to bathe and it seems as though Aemilius does not know how to care for his body or his teeth. The fact that women have sex with him is amazing to Catullus, and it should be amazing to readers, too.
Carmen 97
| Line | Latin text | English translation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | NON (ita me di ament) quicquam referre putaui, | I SWEAR by the gods I didn’t think it mattered one straw |
| 2 | utrumne os an culum olfacerem Aemilio. | whether I sniffed Aemilius’s head or his anus: |
| 3 | nilo mundius hoc, nihiloque immundius illud, | neither was better or worse than the other; |
| 4 | uerum etiam culus mundior et melior: | or rather his anus was the better and smarter of the two, |
| 5 | nam sine dentibus est. hic dentis sesquipedalis, | for it has no teeth. His mouth has teeth half a yard long, |
| 6 | gingiuas uero ploxeni habet ueteris, | gums, moreover, like an old cart-frame, |
| 7 | praeterea rictum qualem diffissus in aestu | with the kind of gape you’d find in summer |
| 8 | meientis mulae cunnus habere solet. | on a mule’s vagina as she urinates. |
| 9 | hic futuit multas et se facit esse uenustum, | He has sex with many a woman and makes himself out a charmer, |
| 10 | et non pistrino traditur atque asino? | and yet he is not passed over to the grinding-mill and its ass. |
| 11 | quem siqua attingit, non illam posse putemus | If any woman touches him, don’t we think that she is capable |
| 12 | aegroti culum lingere carnificis? | of licking the anus of a sick hangman? |
