The introduction lays necessary factual and theoretical groundwork for the chapters to follow by describing the social contexts of the ancient wedding and love affair. The wedding is a markedly erotic moment, but love affairs, while often sharing or borrowing the discourse of the wedding, are unlikely to end in marriage. Greek and Roman norms differ at times, but the literary tradition provides continuity across cultures. In both societies, the wedding is more eroticized than the marriage. The poems associated with the wedding and the affair can be classified as types of occasional verse, deeply connected with specific social contexts. They frequently allude to details of the wedding ritual or of the symposium and its aftermath to suggest verisimilitude. Interaction between poetic discourses therefore implies interaction between social occasions.
This chapter demonstates that Catullus 61, a wedding poem, and Catullus 68, an account of an extramarital rendezvous, are best read in tandem. Both revolve around a woman who crosses over a threshold. In Catullus 61, the woman is a bride, but in Catullus 68, she is the speaker’s mistress. Other points of overlap include the presiding deities Cupid and Hymenaeus, specific lexical choices, terminology of licit and illicit laps, and the women’s spatial and internal transitions. Both poems are composed for male friends and display heterosexual encounters in order to cement homosocial relationships. I show how each poem draws on the occasional discourse of the other in order to seduce the bride and elevate the mistress.
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