Catullus V vs Catullus VII

             Catullus 5 and Catullus 7 are very similar because the bulk of Catullus 5 (lines 7-13) is about how many kisses he would like from Lesbia, and the entirety of Catullus 7 attempts to pinpoint that exact number again.

             Clearly, Catullus wants a lot of kisses seeing as how he wants her to be sure to count the first 3,300 of them precisely (V, lines 7-9) before kissing some more (lines 10-11). 

Catullus also refers in both of the poem to a potential for people to think poorly of them for kissing so much.              In Catullus V (line 12), he says, "ne quis malus invidere possit," and in VII (lines 11-12) he says , "nec pernumerare curiosi possint nec mala fascinmare linqua." These both refer to other people looking at the kissing negatively. It's almost as if he expects misjudgment of any love with her ("rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis" (V, lines 2-3)), and wants them to be put aside as not even a problem. He's trying to convince her that she should be with him, though asking for as many kisses as the number of grains of Libyan sand in Cyrene (VII, lines 3-4) might be a bit of a stretch for a request.

           They do differ, though. To begin with, there were a lot more than 3,300 grains of sand in Cyrene. Seriously, though, he does use metaphors in his hyperbole of the number of kisses he wants in Catullus VII than in five (At least I hope it's a hyperbole!). For example, in VII, he says, "...[the number of kisses is] as great as is the number of the Libyan sand that lies on Siliphium-bearing Cyrene, between the oracle of sultry Jove and the sacred tomb of old Battus; or as many as are the stars, when night is silent, that see the stolen loves of men..." That is 6 consecutive lines of metaphors (lines 3-8), while Catullus 5 has only literal talking of how many kisses he wants (technically more hyperbolic than literal, but certainly not metaphoric). In Catullus 5, he just straight up says that he wants so many kisses that they keep going after 3,300 kisses. ("Give me 1,000 kisses, then 100, then another 1,000, then a second hundred, then continuously another 1,000, then 100\. Then, when we have made many thousands, we will disturb that [count]..." (lines 7-11)

              That's pretty much all there is to it. In both of them he tries to seduce Lesbia by giving her the daunting task of an unreasonable number of kisses (Though not literally that much, just a lot of kisses).

Catullus V

In Catullus 5, He tries to seduce Lesbia with "the YOLO tactic." What this essentially is

is saying,"You only have one life to live, so why waste it not loving me when you could be loving me?" It may sound arrogant when stated clearly like that, the arrogance is much better disguised by clever wording such as Catullus's. He starts off his argument by proving to her that he's on her side. He's showing that he believes the rumors going around about her are false. Whether or not he really does is unimportant. What is important is that he also adds that loving him is directly connected to disregarding the rumors. It almost seems as though he's trying to say that in order to disprove those rumors, she must love him. He then goes on to compare the amount of time they have to live to the eternity in which the sun can live (Well, it's actually only expected to have about twelve billion years, over four and a half of which are over, but it's still dwarfing to our own life expectancies). If that doesn't give you the pressure to do as much as possible in as little time as you can, I don't know what will. Then, he tries to be romantic by exaggerating the number of kisses she should give him. Personally, I think that 3,300 kisses sounds too daunting. He sums it all up by adding some romantic garbage (albeit very beautiful garbage) to the end.

Regretfully, a song I thought I would never want to speak of normally came to mind

when trying to think of a song or poem that used the same argument to try and convince someone to love the songwriter/poet. The song is... Live While We're Young by One Direction. The lyrics, found here, in the chorus especially instruct that the intended recipient forget about all doubts or worries and at least pretend that they're in love with the singer (in this case five guys--OH MY!) because YOLO. One lyric from a verse, while looking through just now, particularly caught my eye to make this case, "Hey girl it's now or never, it's now or never | Don't overthink, just let it go." This lyric clearly says, "Hey, love me! What's that you're trying to decide? Well, too bad! If you wait any longer, you'll die and miss your chance! [And I thought it was rude to call a girl old] Just act now and don't miss out on this limited offer to be in love with the great and marvelous me!"

This shows that this method of attempting to convince someone to love you through the

"YOLO Method" does work because 8-14-year-old girls around the world who think this song was written for them immediately fall in love with all 5 of these guys upon thinking they hear the song.