C.U. ink

Many Columbia professors have tattoos. They are hidden on ankles or wrists, concealed under coats and trousers, or lie behind sleeves that never get rolled up. (I refer in particular to the Columbia and Barnard Classics Departments, but I’m sure professors from other departments are hiding just as much ink.) By contrast, I love showing students my tattoo. I’ve made a positive ritual out of it in my Latin classes. The ritual typically takes place on the first day of class, when both professor and student are keen to make a big impression. Why, I ask, are you interested in learning a difficult, long-dead language, with very little practical application? That’s the start of a speech whose script has been written bit-by-bit over the years, in which I explain my life-changing high school encounter with the Latin poet Catullus. Catullus’ picture of the agony and excitement of love, his seductive picture of fast-living Roman elites, and his disorienting inversions of gender and sexual norms stirred my imagination like nothing I had ever read. It all seemed peculiarly—in fact, impossibly—relevant to my teenaged Australian self. That Catullus and his language were so long-dead only excited me more­—I felt like I was talking to ghosts. My favorite poem was poem 85—“odi et amo,” “I hate and I love,”in which Catullus describes the emotional paralysis that results at the end of his affair with the woman he calls Lesbia. That phrase, “odi et amo,” I declare to students, will, as a result of my affection for Catullus, always be tattooed on my heart—and on my arm. Cue the rolling up of sleeves.

Of course, there is nothing particularly rare about having a Latin tattoo. This language, which—as Nicholas Ostler put it—“created Europe,” is now most prominent in popular culture in school mottos, magical spells, and tattoos. It is a frequent occurrence for a member of the general public with little or no knowledge of Latin to call up the Columbia Classics Department seeking a Latin translation of his favorite phrase, so that it can be inked onto his body for life. Latin seems stately and intellectual, I guess, and it does have the reputation of sticking around for a very long time. The artist in Sydney who did my own tattoo (who, incidentally, specialized in Tolkien-themed tattoos) told me that Latin phrases were one of his most frequent requests, especially short phrases such as “requiescat in pace” (“may he/she rest in peace”) and “audentis Fortuna iuvat” (“Fortune favors the brave,” the foolish slogan of the reckless Turnus in book 10 of “The Aeneid”). The New York Post ran a story a couple of years ago in which Latin professors attempted to decode the pseudo-Latin tattoo “tutela valui” spied on the stomach of a prostitute linked to Eliot Spitzer. But that’s the problem with any tattoo, of course. It’d better be correct. I double, triple, and quadruple-checked my own, even though its three words are familiar to any elementary Latin student.

But with the words are permanently there, I have constantly been surprised at how much their significance has changed over the years. The entire poem, in English, runs like this: “I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you may ask? I don’t know, but I feel it happen, and I’m crucified.” Catullus’ poems have described every stage of his love affair with the woman he calls Lesbia, moving from elated excitement at their first contact to wary joy as the relationship develops, then bitter anger at her abandonment of him. This poem, on the other hand, captures an emotional state seemingly independent of anything she does or says, of residual emotions in agonizing co-existence. I related to the poem on a pretty literal level when I first encountered it. Its eight verbs and zero adjectives seemed to strip romantic feelings down to their absolute core. No angsty teen could fail to relate. But then “I hate and I love” seemed much more broadly, and positively, to be a call to the intensely-lived life. Catullus lives in extremes, and I wanted to too. Now, I admit, the line to me represents a pledge of allegiance to a language both difficult and long-dead. Studying classics means inserting oneself in a long tradition, and the tattoo is my way of claiming a small piece of it for myself. I don’t know what my students make of my ritual. But, as the semester develops, I always hope that they savor the thrill of becoming a part of that tradition too.

The author is a Lit Hum preceptor and graduate student in the Department of Classics.