Catullus 32: Fututiones with Ipsitilla

Catullus poem 32 has traditionally been read as describing an afternoon assignation with a prostitute. The reinterpretation offered here reads the poem not as a one-off piece about a figure mentioned nowhere else in Catullus, but rather as a poem that connects with those in the Lesbia-cycle as well as with Catullus’ metapoetic project more broadly. Ipsitilla, I argue, acts as a Muse-like figure analogous to Lesbia, and the fututiones she prepares for Catullus at his request represent his neoteric poetry: erotic, clever, and about the process of writing.