[83] funera nec funera: with the oxymoron cf. Catul. 112.1 “multus neque multus” (where, however, there is an ἀμφιβολία); Cic. Phil. 1.2.5 “insepultam sepulturam” ; Ov. AA 2.93 “pater nec iam pater” (repeated in Ov. Met. 8.231); and especially such favorite Greek expressions as πόλεμος ἀπόλεμος, τάφος ἄταφος, etc. The reference is doubtless to the life-in-death of the victims on their way to Crete, who were mourned as dead from the moment of their sailing.
Catullus. Catullus. E. T. Merrill. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1893.
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