Whatever it is, wherever he is, whatever he is doing, he smiles: it is a malady he has, neither an elegant one as I think, nor in good taste.

This line comes from Catullus’ invective poem against a man named Egnatius, notorious (in the poet’s telling) for smiling incessantly. Catullus frames the habit as a kind of social and bodily “disease,” using it to mock Egnatius’ lack of decorum and to contrast Roman ideals of measured facial expression with what he portrays as an affected, inappropriate grin. The poem belongs to Catullus’ broader repertoire of satirical attacks on personal mannerisms and public presentation, where small gestures become evidence of moral or cultural failing. The immediate situation is not a recorded historical event but a literary set-piece of ridicule aimed at shaming a recognizable contemporary figure.

Catullus treats constant smiling not as friendliness but as a breach of taste: an uncontrolled reflex that signals vulgarity and poor judgment. The repeated “whatever…wherever…whatever” suggests the smile is automatic, indifferent to context—precisely what makes it socially offensive in Catullus’ value system, which prizes appropriateness (decorum) and situational awareness. Calling it a “malady” medicalizes the behavior, intensifying the insult by implying something is fundamentally wrong with the man rather than merely annoying. The line also shows Catullus’ technique of turning a minor habit into a totalizing character indictment, using exaggeration and moralizing aesthetics (“not elegant…nor in good taste”) to sharpen the satire.