Catullus 16 - Censored Editions

Censored Editions

Several editions of Catullus' works omit the more explicit parts of the poem. A noteworthy example is the 1924 Loeb edition: this omits lines 1 and 2 from the English translation, but includes them in the Latin; lines 7-14 are omitted from both Latin and English; a later Loeb edition gives the complete text in both languages. Other editions have been published with the explicit words blanked out.

NPR redacted (beeped) the first line of Catullus 16, both in Latin and English translation in the radiophonic exchange between Guy Raz and Mary Beard in 2009. C. H. Sisson writes “the obscenity of Catullus has long been a stumbling block”. He follows Loeb, omitting poem lines as non sequitur:

because it seems to me that the poem is better without them (the last eight lines). In the shorter version, Catullus is making a point (as always): the additional lines are probably spurious. It is unlike Catullus to exalt the pornographic quality of what he wrote; his mind was too much on his subject.

Thomas Nelson Winter notes:

In the sense that this is the normal language of those to whom he directs the poem, it is not obscene. Obscenity, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.