[6] pessimi poetae: so Lesbia had in a pet called Catullus, in that he made her uncomfortable by his truces iambi; and she would, of course, dedicate to Vulcan not the bad poetry of some undetermined poetaster, but the particular verses that had stung her, which would naturally be destroyed after a reconciliation as painful memorials (cf. Hor. Carm. 1.16 on a similar occasion). Catullus now playfully ignores the real meaning of her words, and pitches upon Volusius as the pessimus poeta of his acquaintance, whose works are therefore due to Vulcan.
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Catullus. Catullus. E. T. Merrill. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1893.
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