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Poems 5, 6, 7 and 8 of Catullus form an interconnected series.1 Catullus draws them together by referring to notions of display and concealment in a love affair. In particular, Catullus explores a paradox inherent in the competing needs to keep a relationship a secret and to announce it to the wider public. In the tongue-wagging world of Rome, hiding the existence of an affair, as Flavius attempts to do in poem 6, can never be successful and will attract the suspicious minds and cruel tongues of observers; hence Catullus advocates that Flavius confess, in order to control the gossip, in the case of poem 6, from Catullus himself. On the other hand, ostentatious display of felicity in love has the power to evoke the inuidia of the observer which can manifest itself in a hex upon the affair:2 to counter this, in poems 5 and 7, Catullus recommends that the affair, or at least its precise details, be hidden from those who would watch in an envious spirit (5.11-13, 7.11-12). There is something fundamentally perplexing about 5 and 7, since Catullus proclaims what he would conceal, leaving himself, his girl and his affair exposed to the inuidia he wishes to avoid. Poem 8 ends the exploration; by apparently writing finis to Catullus relationship with Lesbia, it also brings down the curtain on the conflicting impulses both to proclaim and to conceal a love affair, a conflict intrinsic to Catullus career as love poet and artist (poems 5 and 7), but also at the heart of poem 6, where Flavius and Catullus embody the contrasting inclinations to keep secret and to reveal sexual intimacies.
There are certain connections between poems 5-8 which suggest that they should be read as a group. Common elements in 5 and 8 show that they begin and end this quartet of poems. The reference to the sun at 5.4 (soles occidere et redire possunt) is imitated at two points in 8: fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles (line 3) and fulsere uere candidi tibi soles (line 8). Catullus also alludes to the opening line of poem 5 (uiuamus . . . atque amemus) in poem 8, with his references to his and Lesbias now separate lives: nec miser uiue (8.10)3 and...