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).