Poems of Catullus

Poem 4: My bean-pod

Phaselus ille, quem uidetis, hospites,

ait fuisse nauium celerrimus,

neque ullius natantis impetum trabis

nequisse praeterire, siue palmulis

opus foret uolare siue linteo.

et hoc negat minacis Hadriatici

negare litus insulasue Cycladas

Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam

Propontida trucemue Ponticum sinum,

ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit

comata silua; nam Cytorio in iugo

loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma.

Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer,

tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima

ait phaselus: ultima ex origine

tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine,

tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore,

et inde tot per impotentia freta

erum tulisse, laeua siue dextera

uocaret aura, siue utrumque Iuppiter

simul secundus incidisset in pedem;

neque ulla uota litoralibus deis

sibi esse facta, cum ueniret a mari

nouissimo hunc ad usque limpidum lacum.

sed haec prius fuere: nunc recondita

senet quiete seque dedicat tibi,

gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris.

Guests, that bean-pod you see declares

he was the swiftest ship of all;

nor could he not outstrip the thrust

of any beam afloat, whether

with palms or cloth he had to fly. 5

And he denies dire Adriatic

coast denies this, or Cyclades,

or renowned Rhodes, or horrid Thracian

Propontis, or savage Pontic shore –

by which this pod-to-be was once 10

a bushy tree, for on Cytorus

ridge he hissed much with loquacious leaves.

Boxwooded Cytorus, Pontic Amastris,

this is and was well-known to you,

the pod declares. From right the first 15

he claims he stood on top of you,

and dipped his palms in your expanse;

and thence, through many headstrong straits

he bore his lord, whether from left

or right the breeze beckoned, or Jove 20

fell upon either sheet at once.

And no vows were fulfilled for him

to seashore gods when lately he came

from the sea up to this limpid lake.

But that was then. Now, in retirement, 25

he wanes and devotes himself to you,

Castor the Twin and Castor’s twin.

Notes
Based on a Hellenistic type of dedicatory epigram where workmen offer their tools of trade on retirement as thanks to a god for the benefits they’ve produced. This sea vessel, known as a phaselus or ‘bean-pod’ because of its shape, seems to have brought Catullus back from Bithynia on the Black Sea (‘Pontic shore’), through the Sea of Marmara (‘Thracian Propontis’), Aegean and Adriatic, and up to Sirmio on Lake Garda. (Lake Garda could be accessed in antiquity from the Aegean via the River Po and River Mincio at Peschiera.) The pod is now in retirement at Catullus’ villa on Sirmio and he’s showing it off to some guests.

The trip is actually described back to front. The fact that he went as far as Rhodes suggests he completed his tour of Asiatic cities mentioned in Homecoming (Poem 46). His route (after Rhodes) would then have been up through the Cyclades and along the Isthmus of Corinth via its ‘diolkos’ to reach the Adriatic. Interestingly, Ovid did a similar trip in reverse on his exile to Tomis on the Black Sea (see Tristia, Book I). ‘Palms’ are oar-blades. Cytorus ridge was on the southern Black Sea coast as was Amastris, the capital of the ancient territory of Paphlagonia. Castor the Twin and Castor’s twin are Castor and Pollux, the protectors of seafarers.

The Latin metre is iambic senarius; the English metre is iambic tetrameters.