Catullus 85 - Chiastic Structure

Chiastic Structure

The contrast in feelings that love provokes is one of the most common subjects of today's world literature. The motif, however, is not original. Anacreon had already said:

Ἐρέω τε δηὖτε κοὐκ ἐρέω,
καὶ μαίνομαι κοὐ μαίνομαι.

I love and yet I do not love,
I am crazy and I am not crazy.

(fr. 46 Gentili)

But with Catullus there seems to be something more; it is of course the experience of trouble, like with Anacreon. But the drama is exacerbated by the sad realization that this trouble arises independently of the human will. It is beyond logic and only in the realm of feeling. The poet has perhaps no choice but to take note of the situation and suffer terribly (the verb excrucior literally means "to be put on the cross").

This verb excrucior is particularly significant because it draws attention to the chiastic structure of the poem as a whole. Catullus is "crucified" -- the literal meaning of excrucior -- or torn in opposite directions by his feelings, and the poem's structure reflects this imagery. John Nicholson of the University of Georgia notes, for instance, that the opening words of the first line, odi et amo, correspond to the final word of the second line, excrucior, while the final word of the first line, requiris, corresponds to the first word of the second line, nescio. Metrically, odi et amo and excrucior are choriambs, while emotionally the two are virtually synonymous in their representation of the poet's painful and conflicting feelings. Simillarly, requiris asks a question to which nescio responds, and both words are trisyllabic. Connecting these corresponding pairs of words forms an X or Greek letter χ, recalling the shape of the cross and the verb excrucior. The poem contains many such structures.