central theme by a series of verses and descends on the other side by a
corresponding series. In the sixty-fourth poem, however, the _epyllion_
which the author of the _Ciris_ clearly had in mind, Catullus used an
intricate but by no means balanced form. The poem opens with the sea
voyage of Peleus on which he meets the sea-nymph, Thetis. Then the poet
leaps over the interval to the marriage feast, only to dwell upon the
sorrows of Ariadne depicted on the coverlet of the marriage couch; thence
he takes us back to the causes of Ariadne's woes, thence forward to the
vengeance upon Ariadne's faithless lover; then back to the second scene
embroidered on the tapestry; and now finally to the wedding itself which
ends with the Fates' wedding song celebrating the future glories of
Peleus' promised son.

The _Ciris_, to be sure, is not quite so intricate, but here again we
have only allusions to the essential parts of the story: how Scylla
offended Juno, how she met Minos, how she cut the lock, and how the city
was taken. We are not even told why Minos failed to keep his pledge to
the maiden. In the midst of the tale, Carme suspends the action by a long
reference to Minos' earlier passion for her own daughter, Britomartis,
which caused the girl's destruction, but the lament in which this story
is disclosed merely alludes to but does not tell the details of the
story. The whole plot of the _Ciris_ is in fact unravelled by means of
a series of allusions and suggestions, exclamations and soliloquies,
parentheses and aposiopeses, interrogations and apostrophes.

In verse-technique[2] the _Ciris_ is as near Catullus' _Peleus_ and
_Thetis_ as it is the _Aeneid_: indeed it is as reminiscent of the former
as it is prophetic of the latter. The spondaic ending which made the line
linger, usually over some word of emotional content, (l. 158):