Catullus 69 to Catullus 43

Catullus 69 and Catullus 43 are very similar in what each poem talks about and what they reveal about Catullus' character. Catullus 69 talks about Rufus who has trouble getting women because he smells bad. Catullus 43 talks about why Catullus doesn't like this woman who is the mistress from the play boy of Formiae. Both of these poems main focus point is on the answer to why each sex wouldn't go out with the opposite sex. For insistence, Catullus 69 expresses the feelings from the woman's view on why she wouldn't go out with Rufus and Catullus 43 expresses Catullus' feelings on why he wouldn't go out with this other girl. Both poems' answers are based around the same broad topic, appearance. I came to this conclusion because each poem never mentions charater traits to why he or she wouldn't go out with the opposite sex. All the comments from each poem is on physical traits. This gets to my next point of how the two poems are related. They reveal the true reason why Catullus loves Lesbia. Since, both poems only express physical characteristics it is easy to tell that Catullus only looks at the physical traits of a woman rather than their character. This makes it easy to conclude that Catullus only likes Lesbia because of her looks. How does he consider this true love?

Also these two poems, reveal more about Catullus' character. In each poem Catullus writes about the bad aspects of the person rather than talking about the good aspects of a person. This makes Catullus look like a hypocrite. He is a type of person who never will look at the good aspects of a person if the bad aspects are bothering him because there is not one thing in both poems that is not negative to a person.