Editing Catulli Carmina (section)

==Dramatic structure==
The piece is divided into three parts: a prelude with Latin text by Orff,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Helm|first=Everett|title=Carl Orff|journal=[[The Musical Quarterly]]|volume=XLI|issue=3|pages=285–304|date=July 1955|doi=10.1093/mq/XLI.3.285}}</ref> the central dramatic story using [[Poetry of Catullus|Catullus' poems]], and a short postlude which recalls the music of the prelude.<ref name=Score>{{cite book
| last                  = Orff
| first                 = Carl
| author-link            = Carl Orff
| title                 = Catulli Carmina
| type                  = Klavierauszug [piano vocal score]
| year                  = 1943
| publisher             = [[Schott Music|B. Schott's Söhne]]
| location              = Mainz
| language              = la
| id                    = 3990
}}</ref>

In the prelude, groups of young women and young men sing to each other of eternal ("eis aiona" – "forever" – two words of Greek in the otherwise Latin text) love and devotion, along with quite explicit statements of the erotic activities they intend with each other. (In the texts distributed with programs and early recordings, such as the Turnabout (Vox) one, many lines in the translation are left blank.) A group of old men interrupts with sarcastic comments and charges the young people to listen to "the songs of Catullus".

The story proper tells of Catullus, a lovesick young man who falls in love with [[Lesbia]], a woman who does not remain faithful to him. The tenor and soprano soloists portray Catullus and Lesbia respectively. This story is based loosely on the factual relationship between Catullus and [[Clodia (wife of Metellus)|Clodia]], with a text mostly constructed from the poems of Catullus, in which he did address Clodia by the pseudonym Lesbia. Catullus wrote many poems about this relationship and the ones selected for the cantata take the audience through its several phases.

In this listing, the poems are given the standard numbers.<ref name=LatinLibrary>{{cite web
|url          = http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/catullus.shtml
|title        = Catullus
|language     = la
|access-date   = 27 December 2012
|quote        = posted from the Whitman College Classics Department from a revised version of Mynors' Oxford text of 1958
}}</ref><ref name=Fordyce>{{cite book
|last = Fordyce
|first = C.J.
|others = Gaius Valerius Catullus
|title = Catullus, a commentary
|publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]
|year = 1966
|orig-year = 1961
|location = [[Oxford]] at the [[Oxford University Press|Clarendon Press]]
}}</ref> Subject to occasional textual variants, the poems are as written by Catullus, except for some interpolations in Latin ('O mea Lesbia' and the like, and exclamations of approval by the old men) and the curious extra words in poem 109.

===Act 1===
*"[[Catullus 85|Odi et amo]]" (poem 85)
*"[[Catullus 5|Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus]]" (poem 5)
*"[[Catullus 51|Ille mi par esse deo videtur]]" (poem 51)
*"Caeli! Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa" (poem 58)
*"Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi" (poem 70)

===Act 2===
*"Jucundum mea vita" (poem 109, with the apparently Italian words ''Dormi, dormi ancora'' interpolated)
*"Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri" (poem 73)

===Act 3===
*"Odi et amo" (poem 85)
*"Amabo mea dulcis Ipsitilla" (poem 32)
*"Ameana, puella defututa" (poem 41)
*"Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire" (poem 8)
*"Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam" (poem 87)
*"Nunc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa" (poem 75)

This selection and sequence of poems is apparently intended to tell the young people on stage that love will not last forever.

However, in the postlude, the young people have clearly decided to ignore the message and the cantata ends with their continued exclamations of "eis aiona" (meaning "forever"), to the exasperation of the old men.