A letto con un caprone. Un topos comico (Plaut. Cas. 1018; Catull. 69 e 71)

Abstract

In Plautus theatre there are two characters opposing to ‘comic’ love and his gallantry: they are the truculentus, characterized by rough wildness and by hostility to the female charm, and the rusticus, repulsive and unpleasant for his belonging to the country. The goat (hircus) symbolizes all this, identifying the invenustus amator par excellence, because of the bad smell. As for the topic of the olere, the comedies propose a series of common places, that become traditional and have a considerable synthesis at the ending part of the Casina: the disgusting lover is represented humorously like a stinking goat. The Catullus poems 69 and 71 show a clear re-elaboration of this comic language in a different genre. They are based on the reformulation of some farcical gags, typical of comic repertoire, and so they allude to the comic interpretation on the characters for whom a reciprocated love is impossible