Phaselus ille (Catullus 4)
Musically, the pauses after
the fifth and sixth iambs turn the pure iambic trimeter (three
dipodies or six iambs) into iambic tetrameter, with each line
consisting of eight iambs or sixteen beats, instead of six iambs
and twelve beats. The reason for this was to allow more expression
or freedom while singing. The lyrics, however, remain true to
the meter, and even with these "rests," the lines move
more like a motor boat than a sail or oar driven boat, so I hope
Catullus would not be too critical.
While working on this poem,
the structural blueprint, which Catullus used for its construction,
became obvious. It may even be related mathematically to the
actual blueprint for building a phaselus. If so, this
is an example of concrete poetry, and I wondered how long this
had gone unnoticed, whether it got by Catullus’ own circle
of friends, or if I was the only one to stare it in the face
so long without seeing it. What started me thinking was not so
much the length – after all, it was a parody of an epic
– but the fact that twenty-seven lines seemed a bit odd.
I remembered my dad constantly counting syllables and lines when
composing a poem, anxious to have something that made sense.
Then it dawned on me that the real poem, that is, the life of
the boat, its origins and career, was only twenty-four lines.
The three-line coda tacked on at the end was just an addendum
about the boat’s retirement and sudden turning to religion.
Twenty-four made much more sense. I mean, how many Books comprise
the ancient Greek epics? Suddenly I felt awfully close to Catullus,
and had to turn to make sure he wasn’t here, somewhere,
in the room laughing at me. There is even a sort of pun on the
meter. The dactylic hexameter, or engine, that drove
the old epics, was much too old and slow for this epic. Therefore
it had to be replaced by the latest technological breakthrough,
the speedy iambic hexameter! This meant that not only could Catullus’
phaselus get its master home much faster than, say, Odysseus’
boat (which never made it home), but it eliminated the need for
such lengthy and weighty things as epics in the first place.
There is more.
Each twelve-line half of the
body is further broken down along the mathematical basis of 5-4-3,
with the corresponding sections mirroring each other. For example,
the last word in line 1 is an address to the hospites,
while the last word in line 13 (first line of the second half)
is an address to boxwood bearing Cytorus, the mountain that served
as the birthplace of the boat. In line 2 the last word is the
superlative celerrimus, while in line 14, it is
cognitissima. This analysis cannot be made line-by-line,
but I think it can be made section-by-section comparing lines
1-5 with 13-17, 6-9 with 18-21, and 10-12 with 22-24.
In any case, such is the structure
adhered to by the song, although, to be truthful, the poem communicated
its form on a subliminal level, as I set it to music before I
thought about it. Once recorded, various sound effects were added
to parallel the poetic narrative. For example, I put my 7th
graders in the background to cheer as the boat launched and 8th
graders at the end to jeer, eager to put the old hero out of
its misery and welcome a new one. (For what it’s worth,
I learned, while recording the song, that 7th graders
make more sincere cheerers and 8th graders more sincere
jeerers). Other sounds woven into the background were recorded
in a Greek village on Greek Navy Day.
