subject[3] to induce a tradition about it as though it were the most
daring and extraordinary of Catullus' poems. The truth is quite
different. It stands midway between the lyrics and the idyls in being a
poem of most studied and elaborate artifice, in which Catullus has
chosen, not the statelier and more familiar rhythms of the hexameter or
elegiac, but one of the Greek lyric metres, of which he had already
introduced several others into Latin. As a _tour de force_ in metrical
form it is remarkable enough, and probably marks the highest point of
Latin achievement in imitation of the more complex Greek metres. As a
lyric poem it preserves, even in its highly artificial structure, much of
the direct force and simplicity which mark all Catullus' best lyrics.
That it goes beyond this, or that--as is often repeated--it transcends
both the idyls and the briefer lyrics in sustained beauty and passion,
cannot be held by any sane judgment.

How far elaboration could lead Catullus is shown in the long idyllic poem
on the _Marriage of Peleus and Thetis_. Here he entirely abandons the
lyric manner, and adventures on a new field, in which he does not prove
very successful. The poem is full of great beauties of detail; but as a
whole it is cloying and yet not satisfying. For a few lines together
Catullus can write in hexameter more exquisitely than any other Latin
poet. The description in this piece of the little breeze that rises at
dawn, beginning _Hic qualis flatu placidum mare matutino_, like the more
famous lines in his other idyllic poem--

_Ut flos in septis secretum nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro,
Quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber;
Multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae--_