So Catullus assumed he would be read, and in books, by people far
away in time:
Libelli. .. quod.../plus uno maneat perenne saeclo. (1.10)
(May this book last through the years for more than one age.)sed dicam uobis, uos porro dicite multis
milibus et facite haec carta loquatur anus. (68.5 6)(But I shall tell you Muses [how Allius helped me], and you in turn tell it to
many thousands and see to it that this page speaks when it is an old woman.)Catullus has readers (lectores, 14b.2), not listeners.
Horace had readers (Ep. 1.19.35). He assumed that he would be read
and in books (Sat. 1.10.4,Ep. 1.20,Odes2.20, 3.30). Used copies of
his books will be sent to the provinces (Ep. 1.20.9–13). He wants readers
with his book open in their hands (Ep. 1.19.34):
iuuat immemorata ferentem
ingenuis oculisque legi manibusque teneri(I rejoice that I bring things previously unknown and that I am read by free
eyes and held by free hands.)^143He goes on to say explicitly that he writes for the eye not the ear, for the
private reader not the theatrical public (Ep. 1.19.35–40):^144
scire velis, mea cur ingratus opuscula lector
laudet ametque domi, premat extra limen iniquus:
non ego ventosae plebis suffragia venor
inpensis cenarum et tritae munere vestis;
non ego nobilium scriptorum auditor et ultor
grammaticas ambire tribus et pulpita dignor.(You want to know why the ungrateful reader praises and loves my little
works at home, but unfairly disparages them out of doors? I do not buyeach other (cf. Cat. 50) but his published verse is inlibelli(27). Ovid (Am. 1.8.2,Trist.
4.9.23 24,Pont. 2.2.95, 3.9.39, 4.15.39) speaks of ‘‘listening’’ only within the fiction of
conversation or letters (e.g.,Pont. 4.5.1 2: ‘‘Ite, leues elegi, doctas ad consulis aures /
uerbaque honorato ferte legenda uiro’’).Pont. 2.5.33 is interesting: ‘‘Qui si forte liber uestras
peruenit ad aures’’; it does not mean ‘‘if someone has read my book to you,’’ but ‘‘if you have
heard about the existence of a previous book.’’ Salanus, the addressee, is reading the poetic
letter of Ovid before him (‘‘versus / legis et lectos,’’ 19 20).
- Mayer 1994, 266: ‘‘H.’s ideal reader.. .‘gets to grips with’ the text personally,
without the services of ananagnostes, who was a slave.’’ - For Horace the contrast is not between reading and recitation, but between poetry
(for readers with books) and drama (for spectators with seats): ‘‘qui se lectori credere malunt
/ quam spectatoris fastidia ferre superbi’’ (Ep. 2.1.214 15).
220 Books and Texts