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[51] Pathetic, ah pathetic – again and again you must lament thus, O my heart.
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Scholars have long been interesting in the androgynous inflection in Catullus' poetry, remarking on the strong feminine presence within his work (Skinner 1997: 131). He wrote through both male and female literary personas, authored works on both his love of women and love of men - he was a poet whose androgynous and transexual motifs are all-pervasive in his work (Skinner 1997: 131).
And Catullus 63 is no exception to this, it is a poem which recites a story of Attis (portrayed as Greek in Catullus' version) giving himself over to Cybele during a moment of frenzy. It is a poem which manipulates normative Roman ideas of gender and would have forced the Roman male reader to view himself as both 'feminized and colonized, reduced to an ethnic as well as a sexual Other.'(Skinner 1997: 140)
At its core Catullus 63 is a poem about the loss of masculinity (and its assigned status) through effeminacy and "womanish" behaviour, reflected literally through Attis' action of self-castration. While for a contemporary reader there may be echoes to an idea of a "transgender experience" reflected in this work, it seems more likely that this poem functions as a cautionary tale against falling into effeminacy - stopping one from becoming a like Cicero's description of Verres. A person who transgresses gender norms, who becomes a woman among men, a man amongst women, someone who is simultaneously both and neither.
These themes are most clearly seen in lines 51-65, where Attis laments the loss of their status and prestige which was tied to their masculinity 'I have been the flower of the gymnasium, I used to be the glory of the wrestler's oil:', the gymnasium and activity of wrestling were tied to the male world in ancient Greece, so they are representative here of the access Attis has lost to this male world through their self-castration and emasculation. Furthermore, there is a clear sense of regret at their actions 'Am I now going to be called a handmaid of the gods and the servant girl of Cybele?', through their emasculation Attis has placed themselves in a submissive position, going as far to say that they may be named a servant girl, Catullus making it explicit the revocation of their masculine status through their actions. And explicitly stating in lines 70-75 that their transformation is punishment for their actions, for transgressing Roman gender roles - 'Now I suffer for what I have done, now I regret it.'.
Catullus' play with gender roles and expectations is additionally expressed in the grammatical choices of the poem, used to reinforce themes of gender and androgyny. Catullus changes Attis' gender between masculine and feminine not only through castration but slips in grammatical gender.
[40] then did Sleep hurry swiftly away from wakened Attis,
and the Goddess Pasithea embraced him in her quivering bosom.
And so, rising from her gentle slumber and now free of her rabid ravings,
[45] when Attis recalled her doings in her heart
and saw with a limpid mind what she now lacked and where she was,
she then bore her steps back to the shore with her heart swelling up.
In this section Catullus shifts the grammatical gender of Attis one they become fully aware of the consequences of their self-castration. Just has their masculinity has been revoked, so has their ability to be gendered in the masculine case, cementing their loss of this status and new identity as a sexual other.
As pointed out by scholars like Marilyn B. Skinner, Attis is not only a sexual other, but an ethnic other as a Greek in Anatolia - they are the apart a system that functions across axes of identity (Crenshaw 1991: 1242).
Just as Verres' transgression of Roman gender roles are punished in Cicero's oration, Attis' transgression is admonished as well in Catullus 63. A clear reflection of Roman gender roles which views masculinity as a revokable status, which has less to do with biological sex rather existing as an achievable state which can be abolished through emasculation and effeminacy. In a society where the status of a Roman citizen male is predicated on control (Skinner 1997: 135), and this loss of control is shown to be life destroying to Attis in Catullus 63.
By transgressing Roman gender roles, Attis is left to the wayside as both a sexual and ethnic Other.
