The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus
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Title: The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus
Author: Gaius Valerius Catullus
Translator: Sir Richard Francis Burton
Leonard C. Smithers
Release date: March 3, 2007 [eBook #20732]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20732
Credits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Keith Edkins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CARMINA OF CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS ***
Produced by Ted Garvin, Keith Edkins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
The
Carmina
of
Caius Valerius Catullus
Now first completely Englished into Verse
and Prose, the Metrical Part by Capt.
Sir Richard F. Burton, R.C.M.G.,
F.R.G.S., etc., etc., etc., and the
Prose Portion, Introduction,
and Notes Explanatory
and Illustrative by
Leonard C.
Smithers
[Illustration]
_LONDON: MDCCCXCIIII: PRINTED FOR THE TRANSLATORS:
IN ONE VOLUME: FOR PRIVATE SUBSCRIBERS ONLY_
[Illustration]
* * * * *
DEAR MR. SMITHERS,
By every right I ought to choose you to edit and bring out Sir Richard
Burton's translation of Catullus, because you collaborated with him on this
work by a correspondence of many months before he died. If I have hesitated
so long as to its production, it was because his notes, which are mostly
like pencilled cobwebs, strewn all over his Latin edition, were headed,
"NEVER SHEW HALF-FINISHED WORK TO WOMEN OR FOOLS." The reason of this
remark was, that in all his writings, his first copy, his first thought,
was always the best and the most powerful. Like many a painter who will go
on improving and touching up his picture till he has destroyed the
likeness, and the startling realistic nature of his subject, so would Sir
Richard go on weakening his first copy by improvements, and then appeal to
me to say which was the best. I was almost invariably obliged, in
conscience, to induce him to stick to the first thought, which had grasped
the whole meaning like a flash. These notes were made in a most curious
way. He used to bring his Latin Catullus down to _table d'hôte_ with him,
and he used to come and sit by me, but the moment he got a person on the
other side, who did not interest him, he used to whisper to me, "Talk, that
I may do my Catullus," and between the courses he wrote what I now give
you. The public school-boy is taught that the Atys was unique in subject
and metre, that it was the greatest and most remarkable poem in Latin
literature, famous for the fiery vehemence of the Greek dithyramb, that it
was the only specimen in Latin of the Galliambic measure, so called,
because sung by the Gallæ--and I suspect that the school-boy now learns
that there are half a dozen others, which you can doubtless name. To _my_
mind the gems of the whole translation are the Epithalamium or Epos of the
marriage of Vinia and Manlius, and the Parcae in that of Peleus and Thetis.
Sir Richard laid great stress on the following in his notes, headed
"Compare with Catullus, the sweet and tender little Villanelle, by Mr.
Edmund Gosse," for the Viol and Flute--the XIX cent. with the I^{st.}
"Little mistress mine, good-bye!
I have been your sparrow true;
Dig my grave, for I must die.
Waste no tear, and heave no sigh;
Life should still be blithe for you,
Little mistress mine, good-bye!
In your garden let me lie
Underneath the pointed yew,
Dig my grave, for I must die.
We have loved the quiet sky
With its tender arch of blue;
Little mistress mine, good-bye!
That I still may feel you nigh,
In your virgin bosom, too,
Dig my grave, for I must die.
Let our garden friends that fly
Be the mourners, fit and few.
Little mistress mine, good-bye!
Dig my grave, for I must die."
Sir Richard seriously began his Catullus on Feb. 18th, 1890, at Hamman
R'irha, in North Africa. He had finished the first rough copy on March
31st, 1890, at Trieste. He made a second copy beginning May 23rd, 1890, at
Trieste, which was finished July 21st, 1890, at Zurich. He then writes a
margin. "Work incomplete, but as soon as I receive Mr. Smithers' prose, I
will fill in the words I now leave in stars, in order that we may not use
the same expressions, and I will then make a third, fair, and complete
copy." But, alas! then he was surprised by Death.
I am afraid that Sir Richard's readers may be disappointed to find that,
unlike Mr. Grant Allen, there is no excursus on the origin of Tree-worship,
and therefore that, perhaps, through ignorance, I have omitted something.
Sir Richard did write in the sixties and seventies on Tree-alphabets, the
Ogham Runes and El Mushajjar, the Arabic Tree-alphabet,--and had theories
and opinions as to its origin; but he did not, I know, connect them in any
way, however remote, with Catullus. I therefore venture to think you will
quite agree with me, that they have no business here, but should appear in
connection with my future work, "Labours and Wisdom of Sir Richard Burton."
All these three and a half years, I have hesitated what to do, but after
seeing other men's translations, his _incomplete_ work is, in my humble
estimation, too good to be consigned to oblivion, so that I will no longer
defer to send you a type-written copy, and to ask you to bring it through
the press, supplying the Latin text, and adding thereto your own prose,
which we never saw.
Yours truly,
ISABEL BURTON.
_July 11th, 1894._
* * * * *
FOREWORD
A scholar lively, remembered to me, that _Catullus_ translated word for
word, is an anachronism, and that a literal English rendering in the
nineteenth century could be true to the poet's letter, but false to his
spirit. I was compelled to admit that something of this is true; but it is
not the whole truth. "Consulting modern taste" means really a mere
imitation, a re-cast of the ancient past in modern material. It is
presenting the toga'd citizen, rough, haughty, and careless of any
approbation not his own, in the costume of to-day,--boiled shirt,
dove-tailed coat, black-cloth clothes, white pocket-handkerchief, and
diamond ring. Moreover, of these transmogrifications we have already enough
and to spare. But we have not, as far as I know, any version of Catullus
which can transport the English reader from the teachings of our century to
that preceding the Christian Era. As discovery is mostly my mania, I have
hit upon a bastard-urging to indulge it, by a presenting to the public of
certain classics in the nude Roman poetry, like the Arab, and of the same
date....
RICHARD F. BURTON.
_Trieste, 1890._
[The Foreword just given is an unfinished pencilling on the margin of
Sir Richard's Latin text of Catullus. I reproduce below, a portion of
his Foreword to a previous translation from the Latin on which we
collaborated and which was issued in the summer of 1890.--L. C. S.]
A 'cute French publisher lately remarked to me that, as a rule, versions in
verse are as enjoyable to the writer as they are unenjoyed by the reader,
who vehemently doubts their truth and trustworthiness. These pages hold in
view one object sole and simple, namely, to prove that a translation,
metrical and literal, may be true and may be trustworthy.
As I told the public (Camoens: Life and Lusiads ii. 185-198), it has ever
been my ambition to reverse the late Mr. Matthew Arnold's peremptory
dictum:--"In a verse translation no original work is any longer
recognisable." And here I may be allowed to borrow from my Supplemental
Arabian Nights (Vol. vi., Appendix pp. 411-412, a book known to few and
never to be reprinted) my vision of the ideal translation which should not
be relegated to the Limbus of Intentions.
"My estimate of a translator's office has never been of the low level
generally assigned to it even in the days when Englishmen were in the habit
of translating every work, interesting or important, published out of
England, and of thus giving a continental and cosmopolitan flavour to their
literature. We cannot at this period expect much from a 'man of letters'
who must produce a monthly volume for a pittance of £20: of him we need not
speak. But the translator at his best, works, when reproducing the matter
and the manner of his original, upon two distinct lines. His prime and
primary object is to please his reader, edifying him and gratifying his
taste; the second is to produce an honest and faithful copy, adding naught
to the sense or abating aught of its especial _cachet_. He has, however, or
should have, another aim wherein is displayed the acme of hermeneutic art.
Every language can profitably lend something to and take somewhat from its
neighbours--an epithet, a metaphor, a naïf idiom, a turn of phrase. And the
translator of original mind who notes the innumerable shades of tone,
manner and complexion will not neglect the frequent opportunities of
enriching his mother-tongue with novel and alien ornaments which shall
justly be accounted barbarisms until formally naturalized and adopted. Nor
will any modern versionist relegate to a foot-note, as is the malpractice
of his banal brotherhood, the striking and often startling phases of the
foreign author's phraseology and dull the text with well-worn and
commonplace English equivalents, thus doing the clean reverse of what he
should do. It was this _beau idéal_ of a translator's success which made
Eustache Deschamps write of his contemporary and brother bard,
_Grand Translateur, noble Geoffroy Chaucier._
Here
'The firste finder of our fair langage'
is styled 'a Socrates in philosophy, a Seneca in morals, an Angel in
conduct and a great Translator,'--a seeming anti-climax which has
scandalized not a little sundry inditers of 'Lives' and 'Memoirs.' The
title is no bathos: it is given simply because Chaucer _translated_ (using
the term in its best and highest sense) into his pure, simple and strong
English tongue with all its linguistic peculiarities, the thoughts and
fancies of his foreign models, the very letter and spirit of Petrarch and
Boccaccio."
For the humble literary status of translation in modern England and for the
short-comings of the average English translator, public taste or rather
caprice is mainly to be blamed. The "general reader," the man not in the
street but the man who makes up the educated mass, greatly relishes a
novelty in the way of "plot" or story or catastrophe while he has a natural
dislike to novelties of style and diction, demanding a certain dilution of
the unfamiliar with the familiar. Hence our translations in verse,
especially when rhymed, become for the most part deflorations or excerpts,
adaptations or periphrases more or less meritorious and the "translator"
was justly enough dubbed "traitor" by critics of the severer sort. And he
amply deserves the injurious name when ignorance of his original's language
perforce makes him pander to popular prescription.
But the good time which has long been coming seems now to have come. The
home reader will no longer put up with the careless caricatures of
classical chefs d'oeuvre which satisfied his old-fashioned predecessor. Our
youngers, in most points our seniors, now expect the translation not only
to interpret the sense of the original but also, when the text lends itself
to such treatment, to render it _verbatim et literatim_, nothing being
increased or diminished, curtailed or expanded. Moreover, in the choicer
passages, they so far require an echo of the original music that its melody
and harmony should be suggested to their mind. Welcomed also are the
mannerisms of the translator's model as far as these aid in preserving,
under the disguise of another dialect, the individuality of the foreigner
and his peculiar costume.
That this high ideal of translation is at length becoming popular now
appears in our literature. The "Villon Society," when advertizing the
novels of Matteo Bandello, Bishop of Agen, justly remarks of the
translator, Mr. John Payne, that his previous works have proved him to
possess special qualifications for "the delicate and difficult task of
transferring into his own language at once the savour and the substance,
the matter and the manner of works of the highest individuality, conceived
and executed in a foreign language."
In my version of hexameters and pentameters I have not shirked the metre
although it is strangely out of favour in English literature while we read
it and enjoy it in German. There is little valid reason for our aversion;
the rhythm has been made familiar to our ears by long courses of Greek and
Latin and the rarity of spondaic feet is assuredly to be supplied by art
and artifice.
And now it is time for farewelling my friends:--we may no longer (alas!)
address them, with the ingenuous Ancient in the imperative
Vos Plaudite.
RICHARD F. BURTON.
_July, 1890._
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION
The present translation was jointly undertaken by the late Sir Richard
Burton and myself in 1890, some months before his sudden and lamented
death. We had previously put into English, and privately printed, a body of
verse from the Latin, and our aim was to follow it with literal and
unexpurgated renderings of Catullus, Juvenal, and Ausonius, from the same
tongue. Sir Richard laid great stress on the necessity of thoroughly
annotating each translation from an erotic (and especially a paederastic)
point of view, but subsequent circumstances caused me to abandon that
intention.
The Latin text of Catullus printed in this volume is that of Mueller (A.D.
1885), which Sir Richard Burton chose as the basis for our translation, and
to that text I have mainly adhered. On some few occasions, however, I have
slightly deviated from it, and, although I have consulted Owen and
Postgate, in such cases I have usually followed Robinson Ellis.
Bearing in mind my duty to the reader as well as to the author, I have
aimed at producing a readable translation, and yet as literal a version
(castrating no passages) as the dissimilarity in idiom of the two
languages, Latin and English, permit; and I claim for this volume that it
is the first literal and complete English translation as yet issued of
Catullus. The translations into English verse which I have consulted are
_The Adventures of Catullus, and the History of his Amours with Lesbia_
(done from the French, 1707), Nott, Lamb, Fleay, (privately printed, 1864),
Hart-Davies, Shaw, Cranstoun, Martin, Grant Allen, and Ellis. Of these,
none has been helpful to me save Professor Robinson Ellis's _Poems and
Fragments of Catullus translated in the metres of the original_,--a most
excellent and scholarly version, to which I owe great indebtedness for many
a felicitous expression. I have also used Dr. Nott freely in my
annotations. The only English prose translation of which I have any
knowledge is the one in Bohn's edition of Catullus, and this, in addition
to being bowdlerized, is in a host of passages more a paraphrase than a
literal translation.
I have not thought it needful in any case to point out my deviations from
Mueller's text, and I have cleared the volume of all the load of
mythological and historical notes which are usually appended to a
translation of a classic, contenting myself with referring the
non-classical reader to Bohn's edition of the poet.
Of the boldness of Sir Richard Burton's experiment of a metrical and linear
translation there can be no question; and on the whole he has succeeded in
proving his contention as to its possibility, though it must be confessed
that it is at times at the cost of obscurity, or of inversions of sentences
which certainly are compelled to lay claim to a poet's license. It must,
however, be borne in mind that in a letter to me just before his death, he
expressed his intention of going entirely through the work afresh, on
receiving my prose, adding that it needed "a power of polishing."
To me has fallen the task of editing Sir Richard's share in this volume
from a type-written copy literally swarming with copyist's errors. With
respect to the occasional lacunae which appear, I can merely state that
Lady Burton has repeatedly assured me that she has furnished me with a
faithful copy of her husband's translation, and that the words omitted
(which are here indicated by full points, not asterisks) were _not_ filled
in by him, because he was first awaiting my translation with the view of
our not using similar expressions. However, Lady Burton has without any
reason consistently refused me even a glance at his MS.; and in our
previous work from the Latin I did not find Sir Richard trouble himself in
the least concerning our using like expressions.
The frontispiece to this volume is reproduced from the statue which stands
over the Palazzo di Consiglio, the Council House at Verona, which is the
only representation of Catullus extant.
LEONARD C. SMITHERS.
_July 11th, 1894._
* * * * *
CONTENTS
I.--DEDICATION TO CORNELIUS NEPOS
II.--LESBIA'S SPARROW
III.--ON THE DEATH OF LESBIA'S SPARROW
IIII.--ON HIS PINNACE
V.--TO LESBIA, (OF LESBOS--CLODIA?)
VI.--TO FLAVIUS: MIS-SPEAKING HIS MISTRESS
VII.--TO LESBIA STILL BELOVED
VIII.--TO HIMSELF, RECOUNTING LESBIA'S INCONSTANCY
VIIII.--TO VERANIUS RETURNED FROM TRAVEL
X.--HE MEETS VARUS AND MISTRESS
XI.--A PARTING INSULT TO LESBIA
XII.--TO M. ASINIUS WHO STOLE NAPERY
XIII.--FABULLUS IS INVITED TO A POET'S SUPPER
XIIII.--TO CALVUS, ACKNOWLEDGING HIS POEMS
XV.--TO AURELIUS--HANDS OFF THE BOY!
XVI.--TO AURELIUS AND FURIUS, IN DEFENCE OF HIS MUSE'S HONESTY
XVII.--OF A "PREDESTINED" HUSBAND
XVIII.--TO PRIAPUS, THE GARDEN-GOD
XVIIII.--TO PRIAPUS
XX.--TO PRIAPUS
XXI.--TO AURELIUS THE SKINFLINT
XXII.--TO VARUS, ABUSING SUFFENUS
XXIII.--TO FURIUS, SATIRICALLY PRAISING HIS POVERTY
XXIIII.--TO JUVENTIUS CONCERNING THE CHOICE OF A FRIEND
XXV.--ADDRESS TO THALLUS, THE NAPERY-THIEF
XXVI.--CATULLUS CONCERNING HIS VILLA
XXVII.--TO HIS CUP-BOY
XXVIII.--TO FRIENDS ON RETURN FROM TRAVEL
XXVIIII.--TO CÆSAR, OF MAMURRA--CALLED MENTULA
XXX.--TO ALFENUS THE PERJURER
XXXI.--ON RETURN TO SIRMIO AND HIS VILLA
XXXII.--CRAVING IPSITHILLA'S LAST FAVOURS
XXXIII.--ON THE VIBENII--BATH-THIEVES
XXXIIII.--HYMN TO DIANA
XXXV.--AN INVITATION TO POET CECILIUS
XXXVI.--ON "THE ANNALS"--A SO-CALLED POEM OF VOLUSIUS
XXXVII.--TO THE FREQUENTERS OF A LOW TAVERN
XXXVIII.--A COMPLAINT TO CORNIFICIUS
XXXVIIII.--ON EGNATIUS OF THE WHITE TEETH
XXXX.--THREATENING RAVIDUS WHO STOLE HIS MISTRESS
XXXXI.--ON MAMURRA'S MISTRESS
XXXXII.--ON A STRUMPET WHO STOLE HIS TABLETS
XXXXIII.--TO MAMURRA'S MISTRESS
XXXXIIII.--CATULLUS TO HIS OWN FARM
XXXXV.--ON ACME AND SEPTUMIUS
XXXXVI.--HIS ADIEUX TO BITHYNIA
XXXXVII.--TO PORCIUS AND SOCRATION
XXXXVIII.--TO JUVENTIUS
XXXXVIIII.--TO MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
L.--TO HIS FRIEND LICINIUS
LI.--TO LESBIA
LII.--CATULLUS TO HIMSELF
LIII.--A JEST CONCERNING CALVUS
LIIII.--TO JULIUS CÆSAR (?)
LV.---OF HIS FRIEND CAMERIUS
LVI.--TO CATO, DESCRIBING A "BLACK JOKER"
LVII.--ON MAMURRA AND JULIUS CÆSAR
LVIII.--ON LESBIA WHO ENDED BADLY
LVIIII.--ON RUFA
LX.--TO A CRUEL CHARMER
LXI.--EPITHALAMIUM ON VINIA AND MANLIUS
LXII.--NUPTIAL SONG BY YOUTHS AND DAMSELS (EPITHALAMIUM)
LXIII.--THE ADVENTURES OF ATYS
LXIIII.--MARRIAGE OF PELEUS AND THETIS (FRAGMENT OF AN EPOS)
LXV.--TO HORTALUS LAMENTING A LOST BROTHER
LXVI.--(LOQUITUR) BERENICE'S LOCK
LXVII.--DIALOGUE CONCERNING CATULLUS AT A HARLOT'S DOOR
LXVIII.--TO MANIUS ON VARIOUS MATTERS
LXVIIII.--TO RUFUS THE FETID
LXX.--ON WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY
LXXI.--TO VERRO
LXXII.--TO LESBIA THE FALSE
LXXIII.--OF AN INGRATE
LXXIIII.--OF GELLIUS
LXXVII.--TO RUFUS, THE TRAITOR FRIEND
LXXVIII.--OF GALLUS
LXXVIIII.--OF LESBIUS
LXXX.--TO GELLIUS
LXXXI.--TO JUVENTIUS
LXXXII.--TO QUINTIUS
LXXXIII.--OF LESBIA'S HUSBAND
LXXXIIII.--OF ARRIUS, A ROMAN 'ARRY
LXXXV.--HOW THE POET LOVES
LXXXVI.--OF QUINTIA
LXXXVII., LXXV.--TO LESBIA
LXXVI.--IN SELF-GRATULATION
LXXXVIII.--TO GELLIUS
LXXXVIIII.--ON GELLIUS
LXXXX.--ON GELLIUS
LXXXXI.--TO GELLIUS
LXXXXII.--ON LESBIA
LXXXXIII.--ON JULIUS CÆSAR
LXXXXIIII.--AGAINST MENTULA (MAMURRA)
LXXXXV.--ON THE "ZMYRNA" OF THE POET CINNA
LXXXXVI.--TO CALVUS, ANENT THE DEAD QUARTILLA
LXXXXVII.--ON ÆMILIUS THE FOUL
LXXXXVIII.--TO VICTIUS THE STINKARD
LXXXXVIIII.--TO JUVENTIUS
C.--ON CÆLIUS AND QUINTIUS
CI.--ON THE BURIAL OF HIS BROTHER
CII.--TO CORNELIUS
CIII.--TO SILO
CIIII.--CONCERNING LESBIA
CV.--ON MAMURRA
CVI.--THE AUCTIONEER AND THE FAIR BOY
CVII.--TO LESBIA RECONCILED
CVIII.--ON COMINIUS
CVIIII.--TO LESBIA ON HER VOW OF CONSTANCY
CX.--TO AUFILENA
CXI.--TO THE SAME
CXII.--ON NASO
CXIII.--TO CINNA
CXIIII.--ON MAMURRA'S SQUANDERING
CXV.--OF THE SAME
CXVI.--TO GELLIUS THE CRITIC
NOTES ILLUSTRATIVE AND EXPLANATORY
* * * * *
[Illustration]
The Carmina
OF
Caius Valerius Catullus
* * * * *
C. VALERII CATVLLI
LIBER.
I.
Quoi dono lepidum novom libellum
Arida modo pumice expolitum?
Corneli, tibi: namque tu solebas
Meas esse aliquid putare nugas,
Iam tum cum ausus es unus Italorum 5
Omne aevum tribus explicare chartis
Doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis.
Quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli,
Qualecumque, quod o patrona virgo,
Plus uno maneat perenne saeclo. 10
I.
DEDICATION TO CORNELIUS NEPOS.
Now smooth'd to polish due with pumice dry
Whereto this lively booklet new give I?
To thee (Cornelius!); for wast ever fain
To deem my trifles somewhat boon contain;
E'en when thou single 'mongst Italians found 5
Daredst all periods in three Scripts expound
Learned (by Jupiter!) elaborately.
Then take thee whatso in this booklet be,
Such as it is, whereto O Patron Maid
To live down Ages lend thou lasting aid! 10
To whom inscribe my dainty tome--just out and with ashen pumice polished?
Cornelius, to thee! for thou wert wont to deem my triflings of account, and
at a time when thou alone of Italians didst dare unfold the ages' abstract
in three chronicles--learned, by Jupiter!--and most laboriously writ.
Wherefore take thou this booklet, such as 'tis, and O Virgin Patroness, may
it outlive generations more than one.
II.
Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
Quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
Quoi primum digitum dare adpetenti
Et acris solet incitare morsus,
Cum desiderio meo nitenti 5
Carum nescioquid libet iocari
Vt solaciolum sui doloris,
Credo ut iam gravis acquiescat ardor:
Tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
Et tristis animi levare curas! 10
* * * *
Tam gratumst mihi quam ferunt puellae
Pernici aureolum fuisse malum,
Quod zonam soluit diu ligatam.
II.
LESBIA'S SPARROW.
Sparrow! my pet's delicious joy,
Wherewith in bosom nurst to toy
She loves, and gives her finger-tip
For sharp-nib'd greeding neb to nip,
Were she who my desire withstood 5
To seek some pet of merry mood,
As crumb o' comfort for her grief,
Methinks her burning lowe's relief:
Could I, as plays she, play with thee,
That mind might win from misery free! 10
* * * *
To me t'were grateful (as they say),
Gold codling was to fleet-foot May,
Whose long-bound zone it loosed for aye.
Sparrow, petling of my girl, with which she wantons, which she presses to
her bosom, and whose eager peckings is accustomed to incite by stretching
forth her forefinger, when my bright-hued beautiful one is pleased to jest
in manner light as (perchance) a solace for her heart ache, thus methinks
she allays love's pressing heats! Would that in manner like, I were able
with thee to sport and sad cares of mind to lighten!
* * * *
This were gracious to me as in story old to the maiden fleet of foot was
the apple golden-fashioned which unloosed her girdle long-time girt.
III.
Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque,
Et quantumst hominum venustiorum.
Passer mortuus est meae puellae,
Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat: 5
Nam mellitus erat suamque norat
Ipsa tam bene quam puella matrem
Nec sese a gremio illius movebat,
Sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
Ad solam dominam usque pipiabat. 10
Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
Illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.
At vobis male sit, malae tenebrae
Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis:
Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis. 15
O factum male! io miselle passer!
Tua nunc opera meae puellae
Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.
III.
ON THE DEATH OF LESBIA'S SPARROW.
Weep every Venus, and all Cupids wail,
And men whose gentler spirits still prevail.
Dead is the Sparrow of my girl, the joy,
Sparrow, my sweeting's most delicious toy,
Whom loved she dearer than her very eyes; 5
For he was honeyed-pet and anywise
Knew her, as even she her mother knew;
Ne'er from her bosom's harbourage he flew
But 'round her hopping here, there, everywhere,
Piped he to none but her his lady fair. 10
Now must he wander o'er the darkling way
Thither, whence life-return the Fates denay.
But ah! beshrew you, evil Shadows low'ring
In Orcus ever loveliest things devouring:
Who bore so pretty a Sparrow fro' her ta'en. 15
(Oh hapless birdie and Oh deed of bane!)
Now by your wanton work my girl appears
With turgid eyelids tinted rose by tears.
Mourn ye, O ye Loves and Cupids and all men of gracious mind. Dead is the
sparrow of my girl, sparrow, sweetling of my girl. Which more than her eyes
she loved; for sweet as honey was it and its mistress knew, as well as
damsel knoweth her own mother nor from her bosom did it rove, but hopping
round first one side then the other, to its mistress alone it evermore did
chirp. Now does it fare along that path of shadows whence naught may e'er
return. Ill be to ye, savage glooms of Orcus, which swallow up all things
of fairness: which have snatched away from me the comely sparrow. O deed of
bale! O sparrow sad of plight! Now on thy account my girl's sweet eyes,
swollen, do redden with tear-drops.
IIII.
Phaselus ille, quem videtis, hospites,
Ait fuisse navium celerrimus,
Neque ullius natantis impetum trabis
Nequisse praeter ire, sive palmulis
Opus foret volare sive linteo. 5
Et hoc negat minacis Adriatici
Negare litus insulasve Cycladas
Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam
Propontida trucemve Ponticum sinum,
Vbi iste post phaselus antea fuit 10
Comata silva: nam Cytorio in iugo
Loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma.
Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer,
Tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima
Ait phaselus: ultima ex origine 15
Tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine,
Tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore,
Et inde tot per inpotentia freta
Erum tulisse, laeva sive dextera
Vocaret aura, sive utrumque Iuppiter 20
Simul secundus incidisset in pedem;
Neque ulla vota litoralibus deis
Sibi esse facta, cum veniret a marei
Novissime hunc ad usque limpidum lacum.
Sed haec prius fuere: nunc recondita 25
Senet quiete seque dedicat tibi,
Gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris.
IIII.
ON HIS PINNACE.
Yonder Pinnace ye (my guests!) behold
Saith she was erstwhile fleetest-fleet of crafts,
Nor could by swiftness of aught plank that swims,
Be she outstripped, whether paddle plied,
Or fared she scudding under canvas-sail. 5
Eke she defieth threat'ning Adrian shore,
Dare not denay her, insular Cyclades,
And noble Rhodos and ferocious Thrace,
Propontis too and blustering Pontic bight.
Where she (my Pinnace now) in times before, 10
Was leafy woodling on Cytórean Chine
For ever loquent lisping with her leaves.
Pontic Amastris! Box-tree-clad Cytórus!
Cognisant were ye, and you weet full well
(So saith my Pinnace) how from earliest age 15
Upon your highmost-spiring peak she stood,
How in your waters first her sculls were dipt,
And thence thro' many and many an important strait
She bore her owner whether left or right,
Where breezes bade her fare, or Jupiter deigned 20
At once propitious strike the sail full square;
Nor to the sea-shore gods was aught of vow
By her deemed needful, when from Ocean's bourne
Extreme she voyaged for this limpid lake.
Yet were such things whilome: now she retired 25
In quiet age devotes herself to thee
(O twin-born Castor) twain with Castor's twin.
That pinnace which ye see, my friends, says that it was the speediest of
boats, nor any craft the surface skimming but it could gain the lead,
whether the course were gone o'er with plashing oars or bended sail. And
this the menacing Adriatic shores may not deny, nor may the Island
Cyclades, nor noble Rhodes and bristling Thrace, Propontis nor the gusty
Pontic gulf, where itself (afterwards a pinnace to become) erstwhile was a
foliaged clump; and oft on Cytorus' ridge hath this foliage announced
itself in vocal rustling. And to thee, Pontic Amastris, and to box-screened
Cytorus, the pinnace vows that this was alway and yet is of common
knowledge most notorious; states that from its primal being it stood upon
thy topmost peak, dipped its oars in thy waters, and bore its master thence
through surly seas of number frequent, whether the wind whistled 'gainst
the starboard quarter or the lee or whether Jove propitious fell on both
the sheets at once; nor any vows [from stress of storm] to shore-gods were
ever made by it when coming from the uttermost seas unto this glassy lake.
But these things were of time gone by: now laid away, it rusts in peace and
dedicates its age to thee, twin Castor, and to Castor's twin.
V.
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius aestimemus assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, 5
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, 10
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
Aut nequis malus invidere possit,
Cum tantum sciet esse basiorum.
V.
TO LESBIA, (OF LESBOS--CLODIA?)
Love we (my Lesbia!) and live we our day,
While all stern sayings crabbed sages say,
At one doit's value let us price and prize!
The Suns can westward sink again to rise
But we, extinguished once our tiny light, 5
Perforce shall slumber through one lasting night!
Kiss me a thousand times, then hundred more,
Then thousand others, then a new five-score,
Still other thousand other hundred store.
Last when the sums to many thousands grow, 10
The tale let's trouble till no more we know,
Nor envious wight despiteful shall misween us
Knowing how many kisses have been kissed between us.
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and count all the mumblings of
sour age at a penny's fee. Suns set can rise again: we when once our brief
light has set must sleep through a perpetual night. Give me of kisses a
thousand, and then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then another thousand without resting, then a hundred. Then, when we have
made many thousands, we will confuse the count lest we know the numbering,
so that no wretch may be able to envy us through knowledge of our kisses'
number.
VI.
Flavi, delicias tuas Catullo,
Nei sint inlepidae atque inelegantes,
Velles dicere, nec tacere posses.
Verum nescioquid febriculosi
Scorti diligis: hoc pudet fateri. 5
Nam te non viduas iacere noctes
Nequiquam tacitum cubile clamat
Sertis ac Syrio fragrans olivo,
Pulvinusque peraeque et hic et ille
Attritus, tremulique quassa lecti 10
Argutatio inambulatioque.
Nam nil stupra valet, nihil, tacere.
Cur? non tam latera ecfututa pandas,
Nei tu quid facias ineptiarum.
Quare quidquid habes boni malique, 15
Dic nobis. volo te ac tuos amores
Ad caelum lepido vocare versu.
VI.
TO FLAVIUS: MIS-SPEAKING HIS MISTRESS.
Thy Charmer (Flavius!) to Catullus' ear
Were she not manner'd mean and worst in wit
Perforce thou hadst praised nor couldst silence keep.
But some enfevered jade, I wot-not-what,
Some piece thou lovest, blushing this to own. 5
For, nowise 'customed widower nights to lie
Thou 'rt ever summoned by no silent bed
With flow'r-wreaths fragrant and with Syrian oil,
By mattress, bolsters, here, there, everywhere
Deep-dinted, and by quaking, shaking couch 10
All crepitation and mobility.
Explain! none whoredoms (no!) shall close my lips.
Why? such outfuttered flank thou ne'er wouldst show
Had not some fulsome work by thee been wrought.
Then what thou holdest, boon or bane be pleased 15
Disclose! For thee and thy beloved fain would I
Upraise to Heaven with my liveliest lay.
O Flavius, of thy sweetheart to Catullus thou would'st speak, nor could'st
thou keep silent, were she not both ill-mannered and ungraceful. In truth
thou affectest I know not what hot-blooded whore: this thou art ashamed to
own. For that thou dost not lie alone a-nights thy couch, fragrant with
garlands and Syrian unguent, in no way mute cries out, and eke the pillow
and bolsters indented here and there, and the creakings and joggings of the
quivering bed: unless thou canst silence these, nothing and again nothing
avails thee to hide thy whoredoms. And why? Thou wouldst not display such
drainèd flanks unless occupied in some tomfoolery. Wherefore, whatsoever
thou hast, be it good or ill, tell us! I wish to laud thee and thy loves to
the sky in joyous verse.
VII.
Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes
Tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque.
Quam magnus numerus Libyssae arenae
Lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis,
Oraclum Iovis inter aestuosi 5
Et Batti veteris sacrum sepulcrum,
Aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox,
Furtivos hominum vident amores,
Tam te basia multa basiare
Vesano satis et super Catullost, 10
Quae nec pernumerare curiosi
Possint nec mala fascinare lingua.
VII.
TO LESBIA STILL BELOVED.
Thou ask'st How many kissing bouts I bore
From thee (my Lesbia!) or be enough or more?
I say what mighty sum of Lybian-sands
Confine Cyrene's Laserpitium-lands
'Twixt Oracle of Jove the Swelterer 5
And olden Battus' holy Sepulchre,
Or stars innumerate through night-stillness ken
The stolen Love-delights of mortal men,
For that to kiss thee with unending kisses
For mad Catullus enough and more be this, 10
Kisses nor curious wight shall count their tale,
Nor to bewitch us evil tongue avail.
Thou askest, how many kisses of thine, Lesbia, may be enough and to spare
for me. As the countless Libyan sands which strew the spicy strand of
Cyrene 'twixt the oracle of swelt'ring Jove and the sacred sepulchre of
ancient Battus, or as the thronging stars which in the hush of darkness
witness the furtive loves of mortals, to kiss thee with kisses of so great
a number is enough and to spare for passion-driven Catullus: so many that
prying eyes may not avail to number, nor ill tongues to ensorcel.
VIII.
Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
Et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,
Cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat
Amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla. 5
Ibi illa multa tum iocosa fiebant,
Quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat.
Fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.
Nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque, inpotens, noli
Nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive, 10
Sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.
Vale, puella. iam Catullus obdurat,
Nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam:
At tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.
Scelesta, vae te! quae tibi manet vita! 15
Quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella?
Quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?
Quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?
At tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.
VIII.
TO HIMSELF RECOUNTING LESBIA'S INCONSTANCY.
Woe-full Catullus! cease to play the fool
And what thou seest dead as dead regard!
Whilòme the sheeniest suns for thee did shine
When oft-a-tripping whither led the girl
By us belovèd, as shall none be loved. 5
There all so merry doings then were done
After thy liking, nor the girl was loath.
Then certès sheeniest suns for thee did shine.
Now she's unwilling: thou too (hapless!) will
Her flight to follow, and sad life to live: 10
Endure with stubborn soul and still obdure.
Damsel, adieu! Catullus obdurate grown
Nor seeks thee, neither asks of thine unwill;
Yet shalt thou sorrow when none woos thee more;
Reprobate! Woe to thee! What life remains? 15
Who now shall love thee? Who'll think thee fair?
Whom now shalt ever love? Whose wilt be called?
To whom shalt kisses give? whose liplets nip?
But thou (Catullus!) destiny-doomed obdure.
Unhappy Catullus, cease thy trifling and what thou seest lost know to be
lost. Once bright days used to shine on thee when thou wert wont to haste
whither thy girl didst lead thee, loved by us as never girl will e'er be
loved. There those many joys were joyed which thou didst wish, nor was the
girl unwilling. In truth bright days used once to shine on thee. Now she no
longer wishes: thou too, powerless to avail, must be unwilling, nor pursue
the retreating one, nor live unhappy, but with firm-set mind endure, steel
thyself. Farewell, girl, now Catullus steels himself, seeks thee not, nor
entreats thy acquiescence. But thou wilt pine, when thou hast no entreaty
proffered. Faithless, go thy way! what manner of life remaineth to thee?
who now will visit thee? who find thee beautiful? whom wilt thou love now?
whose girl wilt thou be called? whom wilt thou kiss? whose lips wilt thou
bite? But thou, Catullus, remain hardened as steel.
VIIII.
Verani, omnibus e meis amicis
Antistans mihi milibus trecentis,
Venistine domum ad tuos Penates
Fratresque unanimos anumque matrem?
Venisti. o mihi nuntii beati! 5
Visam te incolumem audiamque Hiberum
Narrantem loca, facta, nationes,
Vt mos est tuus, adplicansque collum
Iocundum os oculosque suaviabor.
O quantumst hominum beatiorum, 10
Quid me laetius est beatiusve?
VIIII.
TO VERANIUS RETURNED FROM TRAVEL.
Veranius! over every friend of me
Forestanding, owned I hundred thousands three,
Home to Penates and to single-soul'd
Brethren, returned art thou and mother old?
Yes, thou art come. Oh, winsome news come well! 5
Now shall I see thee, safely hear thee tell
Of sites Iberian, deeds and nations 'spied,
(As be thy wont) and neck-a-neck applied
I'll greet with kisses thy glad lips and eyne.
Oh! Of all mortal men beatified 10
Whose joy and gladness greater be than mine?
Veranius, of all my friends standing in the front, owned I three hundred
thousands of them, hast thou come home to thy Penates, thy longing brothers
and thine aged mother? Thou hast come back. O joyful news to me! I may see
thee safe and sound, and may hear thee speak of regions, deeds, and peoples
Iberian, as is thy manner; and reclining o'er thy neck shall kiss thy
jocund mouth and eyes. O all ye blissfullest of men, who more gladsome or
more blissful is than I am?
X.
Varus me meus ad suos amores
Visum duxerat e foro otiosum,
Scortillum, ut mihi tum repente visumst,
Non sane inlepidum neque invenustum.
Huc ut venimus, incidere nobis 5
Sermones varii, in quibus, quid esset
Iam Bithynia, quo modo se haberet,
Ecquonam mihi profuisset aere.
Respondi id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis
Nec praetoribus esse nec cohorti, 10
Cur quisquam caput unctius referret,
Praesertim quibus esset inrumator
Praetor, non faciens pili cohortem.
'At certe tamen, inquiunt, quod illic
Natum dicitur esse, conparasti 15
Ad lecticam homines.' ego, ut puellae
Vnum me facerem beatiorem,
'Non' inquam 'mihi tam fuit maligne,
Vt, provincia quod mala incidisset,
Non possem octo homines parare rectos.' 20
At mi nullus erat nec hic neque illic,
Fractum qui veteris pedem grabati
In collo sibi collocare posset.
Hic illa, ut decuit cinaediorem,
'Quaeso' inquit 'mihi, mi Catulle, paulum 25
Istos. commode enim volo ad Sarapim
Deferri.' 'minime' inquii puellae;
* * * *
'Istud quod modo dixeram me habere,
Fugit me ratio: meus sodalis
Cinnast Gaius, is sibi paravit. 30
Verum, utrum illius an mei, quid ad me?
Vtor tam bene quam mihi pararim.
Sed tu insulsa male ac molesta vivis,
Per quam non licet esse negligentem.'
X.
HE MEETS VARUS AND MISTRESS.
Led me my Varus to his flame,
As I from Forum idling came.
Forthright some whorelet judged I it
Nor lacking looks nor wanting wit,
When hied we thither, mid us three 5
Fell various talk, as how might be
Bithynia now, and how it fared,
And if some coin I made or spared.
"There was no cause" (I soothly said)
"The Prætors or the Cohort made 10
Thence to return with oilier head;
The more when ruled by ----
Prætor, as pile the Cohort rating."
Quoth they, "But certès as 'twas there
The custom rose, some men to bear 15
Litter thou boughtest?" I to her
To seem but richer, wealthier,
Cry, "Nay, with me 'twas not so ill
That, given the Province suffered, still
Eight stiff-backed loons I could not buy.' 20
(Withal none here nor there owned I
Who broken leg of Couch outworn
On nape of neck had ever borne!)
Then she, as pathic piece became,
"Prithee Catullus mine, those same 25
Lend me, Serapis-wards I'd hie."
* * * *
"Easy, on no-wise, no," quoth I,
"Whate'er was mine, I lately said
Is some mistake, my camarade
One Cinna--Gaius--bought the lot, 30
But his or mine, it matters what?
I use it freely as though bought,
Yet thou, pert troubler, most absurd,
None suffer'st speak an idle word."
Varus drew me off to see his mistress as I was strolling from the Forum: a
little whore, as it seemed to me at the first glance, neither inelegant nor
lacking good looks. When we came in, we fell to discussing various
subjects, amongst which, how was Bithynia now, how things had gone there,
and whether I had made any money there. I replied, what was true, that
neither ourselves nor the praetors nor their suite had brought away
anything whereby to flaunt a better-scented poll, especially as our
praetor, the irrumating beast, cared not a single hair for his suite. "But
surely," she said, "you got some men to bear your litter, for they are said
to grow there?" I, to make myself appear to the girl as one of the
fortunate, "Nay," I say, "it did not go that badly with me, ill as the
province turned out, that I could not procure eight strapping knaves to
bear me." (But not a single one was mine either here or there who the
fractured foot of my old bedstead could hoist on his neck.) And she, like a
pathic girl, "I pray thee," says she, "lend me, my Catullus, those bearers
for a short time, for I wish to be borne to the shrine of Serapis." "Stay,"
quoth I to the girl, "when I said I had this, my tongue slipped; my friend,
Cinna Gaius, he provided himself with these. In truth, whether his or
mine--what do I trouble? I use them as though I had paid for them. But
thou, in ill manner with foolish teasing dost not allow me to be heedless."
XI.
Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli,
Sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,
Litus ut longe resonante Eoa
Tunditur unda,
Sive in Hyrcanos Arabesve molles, 5
Seu Sacas sagittiferosve Parthos,
Sive qua septemgeminus colorat
Aequora Nilus,
Sive trans altas gradietur Alpes,
Caesaris visens monimenta magni, 10
Gallicum Rhenum, horribile aequor ulti-
mosque Britannos,
Omnia haec, quaecumque feret voluntas
Caelitum, temptare simul parati,
Pauca nuntiate meae puellae 15
Non bona dicta.
Cum suis vivat valeatque moechis,
Quos simul conplexa tenet trecentos,
Nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium
Ilia rumpens: 20
Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,
Qui illius culpa cecidit velut prati
Vltimi flos, praeter eunte postquam
Tactus aratrost.
XI.
A PARTING INSULT TO LESBIA.
Furius and Aurelius, Catullus' friends,
Whether extremest Indian shore he brave,
Strands where far-resounding billow rends
The shattered wave,
Or 'mid Hyrcanians dwell he, Arabs soft and wild, 5
Sacæ and Parthians of the arrow fain,
Or where the Seven-mouth'd Nilus mud-defiled
Tinges the Main,
Or climb he lofty Alpine Crest and note
Works monumental, Cæsar's grandeur telling, 10
Rhine Gallic, horrid Ocean and remote
Britons low-dwelling;
All these (whatever shall the will design
Of Heaven-homed Gods) Oh ye prepared to tempt;
Announce your briefest to that damsel mine 15
In words unkempt:--
Live she and love she wenchers several,
Embrace three hundred wi' the like requitals,
None truly loving and withal of all
Bursting the vitals: 20
My love regard she not, my love of yore,
Which fell through fault of her, as falls the fair
Last meadow-floret whenas passed it o'er
Touch of the share.
Furius and Aurelius, comrades of Catullus, whether he penetrate to furthest
Ind where the strand is lashed by the far-echoing Eoan surge, or whether
'midst the Hyrcans or soft Arabs, or whether the Sacians or quiver-bearing
Parthians, or where the seven-mouthed Nile encolours the sea, or whether he
traverse the lofty Alps, gazing at the monuments of mighty Caesar, the
gallic Rhine, the dismal and remotest Britons, all these, whatever the
Heavens' Will may bear, prepared at once to attempt,--bear ye to my girl
this brief message of no fair speech. May she live and flourish with her
swivers, of whom may she hold at once embraced the full three hundred,
loving not one in real truth, but bursting again and again the flanks of
all: nor may she look upon my love as before, she whose own guile slew it,
e'en as a flower on the greensward's verge, after the touch of the passing
plough.
XII.
Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
Non belle uteris in ioco atque vino:
Tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
Hoc salsum esse putas? fugit te, inepte:
Quamvis sordida res et invenustast. 5
Non credis mihi? crede Polioni
Fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
Mutari velit: est enim leporum
Disertus puer ac facetiarum.
Quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos 10
Expecta aut mihi linteum remitte,
Quod me non movet aestimatione,
Verumst mnemosynum mei sodalis.
Nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hibereis
Miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus 15
Et Veranius: haec amem necessest
Vt Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.
XII.
TO M. ASINIUS WHO STOLE NAPERY.
Marrúcinus Asinius! ill thou usest
That hand sinistral in thy wit and wine
Filching the napkins of more heedless hosts.
Dost find this funny? Fool it passeth thee
How 'tis a sordid deed, a sorry jest. 5
Dost misbelieve me? Trust to Pollio,
Thy brother, ready to compound such thefts
E'en at a talent's cost; for he's a youth
In speech past master and in fair pleasantries.
Of hendecasyllabics hundreds three 10
Therefore expect thou, or return forthright
Linens whose loss affects me not for worth
But as mementoes of a comrade mine.
For napkins Sætaban from Ebro-land
Fabúllus sent me a free-giftie given 15
Also Veránius: these perforce I love
E'en as my Veraniólus and Fabúllus.
Marrucinius Asinius, thou dost use thy left hand in no fair fashion 'midst
the jests and wine: thou dost filch away the napkins of the heedless. Dost
thou think this a joke? it flies thee, stupid fool, how coarse a thing and
unbecoming 'tis! Dost not credit me? credit thy brother Pollio who would
willingly give a talent to divert thee from thy thefts: for he is a lad
skilled in pleasantries and facetiousness. Wherefore, either expect
hendecasyllables three hundred, or return me my napkin which I esteem, not
for its value but as a pledge of remembrance from my comrade. For Fabullus
and Veranius sent me as a gift handkerchiefs from Iberian Saetabis; these
must I prize e'en as I do Veraniolus and Fabullus.
XIII.
Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me
Paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus,
Si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam
Cenam, non sine candida puella
Et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis. 5
Haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster,
Cenabis bene: nam tui Catulli
Plenus sacculus est aranearum.
Sed contra accipies meros amores
Seu quid suavius elegantiusvest: 10
Nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae
Donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque,
Quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis,
Totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.
XIII.
FABULLUS IS INVITED TO A POET'S SUPPER.
Thou'lt sup right well with me, Fabúllus mine,
In days few-numbered an the Gods design,
An great and goodly meal thou bring wi' thee
Nowise forgetting damsel bright o' blee,
With wine, and salty wit and laughs all-gay. 5
An these my bonny man, thou bring, I say
Thou'lt sup right well, for thy Catullus' purse
Save web of spider nothing does imburse.
But thou in countergift mere loves shalt take
Or aught of sweeter taste or fairer make: 10
I'll give thee unguent lent my girl to scent
By every Venus and all Cupids sent,
Which, as thou savour, pray Gods interpose
And thee, Fabúllus, make a Naught-but-nose.
Thou shalt feast well with me, my Fabullus, in a few days, if the gods
favour thee, provided thou dost bear hither with thee a good and great
feast, not forgetting a fair damsel and wine and wit and all kinds of
laughter. Provided, I say, thou dost bear hither these, our charming one,
thou wilt feast well: for thy Catullus' purse is brimful of cobwebs. But in
return thou may'st receive a perfect love, or whatever is sweeter or more
elegant: for I will give thee an unguent which the Loves and Cupids gave
unto my girl, which when thou dost smell it, thou wilt entreat the gods to
make thee, O Fabullus, one total Nose!
XIIII.
Ni te plus oculis meis amarem,
Iocundissime Calve, munere isto
Odissem te odio Vatiniano:
Nam quid feci ego quidve sum locutus,
Cur me tot male perderes poetis? 5
Isti di mala multa dent clienti,
Qui tantum tibi misit inpiorum.
Quod si, ut suspicor, hoc novum ac repertum
Munus dat tibi Sulla litterator,
Non est mi male, sed bene ac beate, 10
Quod non dispereunt tui labores.
Di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum
Quem tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum
Misti, continuo ut die periret,
Saturnalibus, optimo dierum! 15
Non non hoc tibi, salse, sic abibit:
Nam, si luxerit, ad librariorum
Curram scrinia, Caesios, Aquinos,
Suffenum, omnia colligam venena,
Ac te his suppliciis remunerabor. 20
Vos hinc interea (valete) abite
Illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis,
Saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae.
XIIIIb.
Siqui forte mearum ineptiarum
Lectores eritis manusque vestras 25
Non horrebitis admovere nobis,
* * * *
XIIII.
TO CALVUS, ACKNOWLEDGING HIS POEMS.
Did I not liefer love thee than my eyes
(Winsomest Calvus!), for that gift of thine
Certès I'd hate thee with Vatinian hate.
Say me, how came I, or by word or deed,
To cause thee plague me with so many a bard? 5
The Gods deal many an ill to such a client,
Who sent of impious wights to thee such crowd.
But if (as guess I) this choice boon new-found
To thee from "Commentator" Sulla come,
None ill I hold it--well and welcome 'tis, 10
For that thy labours ne'er to death be doom'd.
Great Gods! What horrid booklet damnable
Unto thine own Catullus thou (perdie!)
Did send, that ever day by day die he
In Saturnalia, first of festivals. 15
No! No! thus shall't not pass wi' thee, sweet wag,
For I at dawning day will scour the booths
Of bibliopoles, Aquinii, Cæsii and
Suffenus, gather all their poison-trash
And with such torments pay thee for thy pains. 20
Now for the present hence, adieu! begone
Thither, whence came ye, brought by luckless feet,
Pests of the Century, ye pernicious Poets.
XIIIIb.
An of my trifles peradventure chance
You to be readers, and the hands of you 25
Without a shudder unto us be offer'd
* * * *
Did I not love thee more than mine eyes, O most jocund Calvus, for thy gift
I should abhor thee with Vatinian abhorrence. For what have I done or what
have I said that thou shouldst torment me so vilely with these poets? May
the gods give that client of thine ills enow, who sent thee so much trash!
Yet if, as I suspect, this new and care-picked gift, Sulla, the
litterateur, gives thee, it is not ill to me, but well and beatific, that
thy labours [in his cause] are not made light of. Great gods, what a
horrible and accurst book which, forsooth, thou hast sent to thy Catullus
that he might die of boredom the livelong day in the Saturnalia, choicest
of days! No, no, my joker, this shall not leave thee so: for at daydawn I
will haste to the booksellers' cases; the Caesii, the Aquini, Suffenus,
every poisonous rubbish will I collect that I may repay thee with these
tortures. Meantime (farewell ye) hence depart ye from here, whither an ill
foot brought ye, pests of the period, puniest of poetasters.
If by chance ye ever be readers of my triflings and ye will not quake to
lay your hands upon us,
* * * *
XV.
Commendo tibi me ac meos amores,
Aureli. veniam peto pudentem,
Vt, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti,
Quod castum expeteres et integellum,
Conserves puerum mihi pudice, 5
Non dico a populo: nihil veremur
Istos, qui in platea modo huc modo illuc
In re praetereunt sua occupati:
Verum a te metuo tuoque pene
Infesto pueris bonis malisque. 10
Quem tu qua lubet, ut iubet, moveto,
Quantum vis, ubi erit foris, paratum:
Hunc unum excipio, ut puto, pudenter.
Quod si te mala mens furorque vecors
In tantam inpulerit, sceleste, culpam, 15
Vt nostrum insidiis caput lacessas,
A tum te miserum malique fati,
Quem attractis pedibus patente porta
Percurrent raphanique mugilesque.
XV.
TO AURELIUS--HANDS OFF THE BOY!
To thee I trust my loves and me,
(Aurelius!) craving modesty.
That (if in mind didst ever long
To win aught chaste unknowing wrong)
Then guard my boy in purest way. 5
From folk I say not: naught affray
The crowds wont here and there to run
Through street-squares, busied every one;
But thee I dread nor less thy penis
Fair or foul, younglings' foe I ween is! 10
Wag it as wish thou, at its will,
When out of doors its hope fulfil;
Him bar I, modestly, methinks.
But should ill-mind or lust's high jinks
Thee (Sinner!), drive to sin so dread, 15
That durst ensnare our dearling's head,
Ah! woe's thee (wretch!) and evil fate,
Mullet and radish shall pierce and grate,
When feet-bound, haled through yawning gate.
I commend me to thee with my charmer, Aurelius. I come for modest boon
that,--didst thine heart long for aught, which thou desiredst chaste and
untouched,--thou 'lt preserve for me the chastity of my boy. I do not say
from the public: I fear those naught who hurry along the thoroughfares
hither thither occupied on their own business: truth my fear is from thee
and thy penis, pestilent eke to fair and to foul. Set it in motion where
thou dost please, whenever thou biddest, as much as thou wishest, wherever
thou findest the opportunity out of doors: this one object I except, to my
thought a reasonable boon. But if thy evil mind and senseless rutting push
thee forward, scoundrel, to so great a crime as to assail our head with thy
snares, O wretch, calamitous mishap shall happen thee, when with feet taut
bound, through the open entrance radishes and mullets shall pierce.
XVI.
Pedicabo ego vos et inrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
Qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
Quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
Nam castum esse decet pium poetam 5
Ipsum, versiculos nihil necessest,
Qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
Si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici
Et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
Non dico pueris, sed his pilosis, 10
Qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
Vos, quom milia multa basiorum
Legistis, male me marem putatis?
Pedicabo ego vos et inrumabo.
XVI.
TO AURELIUS AND FURIUS IN DEFENCE OF HIS MUSE'S HONESTY.
I'll ---- you twain and ----
Pathic Aurélius! Fúrius, libertines!
Who durst determine from my versicles
Which seem o'er softy, that I'm scant of shame.
For pious poet it behoves be chaste 5
Himself; no chastity his verses need;
Nay, gain they finally more salt of wit
When over softy and of scanty shame,
Apt for exciting somewhat prurient,
In boys, I say not, but in bearded men 10
Who fail of movements in their hardened loins.
Ye who so many thousand kisses sung
Have read, deny male masculant I be?
You twain I'll ---- and ----
I will paedicate and irrumate you, Aurelius the bardache and Furius the
cinaede, who judge me from my verses rich in love-liesse, to be their equal
in modesty. For it behoves your devout poet to be chaste himself; his
verses--not of necessity. Which verses, in a word, may have a spice and
volupty, may have passion's cling and such like decency, so that they can
incite with ticklings, I do not say boys, but bearded ones whose stiffened
limbs amort lack pliancy in movement. You, because of many thousand kisses
you have read, think me womanish. I will paedicate and irrumate you!
XVII.
O Colonia, quae cupis ponte ludere longo,
Et salire paratum habes, sed vereris inepta
Crura ponticuli assulis stantis in redivivis,
Ne supinus eat cavaque in palude recumbat;
Sic tibi bonus ex tua pons libidine fiat, 5
In quo vel Salisubsili sacra suscipiantur:
Munus hoc mihi maximi da, Colonia, risus.
Quendam municipem meum de tuo volo ponte
Ire praecipitem in lutum per caputque pedesque,
Verum totius ut lacus putidaeque paludis 10
Lividissima maximeque est profunda vorago.
Insulsissimus est homo, nec sapit pueri instar
Bimuli tremula patris dormientis in ulna.
Quoi cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella
(Et puella tenellulo delicatior haedo, 15
Adservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis),
Ludere hanc sinit ut lubet, nec pili facit uni,
Nec se sublevat ex sua parte, sed velut alnus
In fossa Liguri iacet suppernata securi,
Tantundem omnia sentiens quam si nulla sit usquam, 20
Talis iste meus stupor nil videt, nihil audit,
Ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit.
Nunc eum volo de tuo ponte mittere pronum,
Si pote stolidum repente excitare veternum
Et supinum animum in gravi derelinquere caeno, 25
Ferream ut soleam tenaci in voragine mula.
XVII.
OF A "PREDESTINED" HUSBAND.
Colony! fain to display thy games on length of thy town-bridge!
There, too, ready to dance, though fearing the shaking of crazy
Logs of the Bridgelet propt on pier-piles newly renewèd,
Lest supine all sink deep-merged in the marish's hollow,
So may the bridge hold good when builded after thy pleasure 5
Where Salisúbulus' rites with solemn function are sacred,
As thou (Colony!) grant me boon of mightiest laughter.
Certain a townsman mine I'd lief see thrown from thy gangway
Hurlèd head over heels precipitous whelmed in the quagmire,
Where the lake and the boglands are most rotten and stinking, 10
Deepest and lividest lie, the swallow of hollow voracious.
Witless surely the wight whose sense is less than of boy-babe
Two-year-old and a-sleep on trembling forearm of father.
He though wedded to girl in greenest bloom of her youth-tide,
(Bride-wife daintier bred than ever was delicate kidlet, 15
Worthier diligent watch than grape-bunch blackest and ripest)
Suffers her sport as she please nor rates her even at hair's worth,
Nowise 'stirring himself, but lying log-like as alder
Felled and o'er floating the fosse of safe Ligurian woodsman,
Feeling withal, as though such spouse he never had own'd; 20
So this marvel o' mine sees naught, and nothing can hear he,
What he himself, an he be or not be, wholly unknowing.
Now would I willingly pitch such wight head first fro' thy bridge,
Better a-sudden t'arouse that numskull's stolid old senses,
Or in the sluggish mud his soul supine to deposit 25
Even as she-mule casts iron shoe where quagmire is stiffest.
O Colonia, that longest to disport thyself on a long bridge and art
prepared for the dance, but that fearest the trembling legs of the
bridgelet builded on re-used shavings, lest supine it may lie stretched in
the hollow swamp; may a good bridge take its place designed to thy fancy,
on which e'en the Salian dances may be sustained: for the which grant to
me, Colonia, greatest of gifts glee-exciting. Such an one, townsman of
mine, I want from thy bridge to be pitched in the sludge head over heels,
right where the lake of all its stinking slime is dankest and most
superfluent--a deep-sunk abyss. The man is a gaping gaby! lacking the sense
of a two-years-old baby dozing on its father's cradling arm. Although to
him is wedded a girl flushed with springtide's bloom (and a girl more
dainty than a tender kid, meet to be watched with keener diligence than the
lush-black grape-bunch), he leaves her to sport at her list, cares not a
single hair, nor bestirs himself with marital office, but lies as an alder
felled by Ligurian hatchet in a ditch, as sentient of everything as though
no woman were at his side. Such is my booby! he sees not, he hears naught.
Who himself is, or whether he be or be not, he also knows not. Now I wish
to chuck him head first from thy bridge, so as to suddenly rouse (if
possible) this droning dullard and to leave behind in the sticky slush his
sluggish spirit, as a mule casts its iron shoe in the tenacious slough.
XVIII.
Hunc lucum tibi dedico, consecroque, Priape,
Qua domus tua Lampsaci est, quaque silva, Priape,
Nam te praecipue in suis urbibus colit ora
Hellespontia, caeteris ostreosior oris.
XVIII.
TO PRIAPUS, THE GARDEN-GOD.
This grove to thee devote I give, Priapus!
Who home be Lampsacus and holt, Priapus!
For thee in cities worship most the shores
Of Hellespont the richest oystery strand.
This grove I dedicate and consecrate to thee, Priapus, who hast thy home at
Lampsacus, and eke thy woodlands, Priapus; for thee especially in its
cities worships the coast of the Hellespont, richer in oysters than all
other shores.
XVIIII.
Hunc ego, juvenes, locum, villulamque palustrem,
Tectam vimine junceo, caricisque maniplis,
Quercus arida, rustica conformata securi,
Nunc tuor: magis, et magis ut beata quotannis.
Hujus nam Domini colunt me, Deumque salutant, 5
Pauperis tugurii pater, filiusque coloni:
Alter, assidua colens diligentia, ut herba
Dumosa, asperaque a meo sit remota sacello:
Alter, parva ferens manu semper munera larga.
Florido mihi ponitur picta vere corolla 10
Primitu', et tenera virens spica mollis arista:
Luteae violae mihi, luteumque papaver,
Pallentesque cucurbitae, et suaveolentia mala,
Vva pampinea rubens educata sub umbra.
Sanguine hanc etiam mihi (sed tacebitis) aram 15
Barbatus linit hirculus, cornipesque capella:
Pro queis omnia honoribus haec necesse Priapo
Praestare, et domini hortulum, vineamque tueri.
Quare hinc, o pueri, malas abstinete rapinas.
Vicinus prope dives est, negligensque Priapus. 20
Inde sumite: semita haec deinde vos feret ipsa.
XVIIII.
TO PRIAPUS.
This place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turf-builded cottage,
Roofed with its osier-twigs and thatched with its bundles of sedges;
I from the dried oak hewn and fashioned with rustical hatchet,
Guarding them year by year while more are they evermore thriving.
For here be owners twain who greet and worship my Godship, 5
He of the poor hut lord and his son, the pair of them peasants:
This with assiduous toil aye works the thicketty herbage
And the coarse water-grass to clear afar from my chapel:
That with his open hand ever brings me offerings humble.
Hung up in honour mine are flowery firstlings of spring-tide, 10
Wreaths with their ears still soft the tender stalklets a-crowning;
Violets pale are mine by side of the poppy-head pallid;
With the dull yellow gourd and apples sweetest of savour;
Lastly the blushing grape disposed in shade of the vine-tree.
Anon mine altar (this same) with blood (but you will be silent!) 15
Bearded kid and anon some horny-hoofed nanny shall sprinkle.
Wherefore Priapus is bound to requite such honours by service,
Doing his duty to guard both vineyard and garth of his lordling.
Here then, O lads, refrain from ill-mannered picking and stealing:
Rich be the neighbour-hind and negligent eke his Priapus: 20
Take what be his: this path hence leadeth straight to his ownings.
This place, youths, and the marshland cot thatched with rushes, osier-twigs
and bundles of sedge, I, carved from a dry oak by a rustic axe, now
protect, so that they thrive more and more every year. For its owners, the
father of the poor hut and his son,--both husbandmen,--revere me and salute
me as a god; the one labouring with assiduous diligence that the harsh
weeds and brambles may be kept away from my sanctuary, the other often
bringing me small offerings with open hand. On me is placed a many-tinted
wreath of early spring flowers and the soft green blade and ear of the
tender corn. Saffron-coloured violets, the orange-hued poppy, wan gourds,
sweet-scented apples, and the purpling grape trained in the shade of the
vine, [are offered] to me. Sometimes, (but keep silent as to this) even the
bearded he-goat, and the horny-footed nanny sprinkle my altar with blood;
for which honours Priapus is bound in return to do everything [which lies
in his duty], and to keep strict guard over the little garden and vineyard
of his master. Wherefore, abstain, O lads, from your evil pilfering here.
Our next neighbour is rich and his Priapus is negligent. Take from him;
this path then will lead you to his grounds.
XX.
Ego haec ego arte fabricata rustica,
Ego arida, o viator, ecce populus
Agellulum hunc, sinistra, tute quem vides,
Herique villulam, hortulumque pauperis
Tuor, malasque furis arceo manus. 5
Mihi corolla picta vero ponitur:
Mihi rubens arista sole fervido:
Mihi virente dulcis uva pampino:
Mihique glauca duro oliva frigore.
Meis capella delicata pascuis 10
In urbem adulta lacte portat ubera:
Meisque pinguis agnus ex ovilibus
Gravem domum remittit aere dexteram:
Tenerque, matre mugiente, vaccula
Deum profundit ante templa sanguinem. 15
Proin', viator, hunc Deum vereberis,
Manumque sorsum habebis hoc tibi expedit.
Parata namque crux, sine arte mentula.
Velim pol, inquis: at pol ecce, villicus
Venit: valente cui revulsa brachio 20
Fit ista mentula apta clava dexterae.
XX.
TO PRIAPUS.
I thuswise fashionèd by rustic art
And from dried poplar-trunk (O traveller!) hewn,
This fieldlet, leftwards as thy glances fall,
And my lord's cottage with his pauper garth
Protect, repelling thieves' rapacious hands. 5
In spring with vari-coloured wreaths I'm crown'd,
In fervid summer with the glowing grain,
Then with green vine-shoot and the luscious bunch,
And glaucous olive-tree in bitter cold.
The dainty she-goat from my pasture bears 10
Her milk-distended udders to the town:
Out of my sheep-cotes ta'en the fatted lamb
Sends home with silver right-hand heavily charged;
And, while its mother lows, the tender calf
Before the temples of the Gods must bleed. 15
Hence of such Godhead, (traveller!) stand in awe,
Best it befits thee off to keep thy hands.
Thy cross is ready, shaped as artless yard;
"I'm willing, 'faith" (thou say'st) but 'faith here comes
The boor, and plucking forth with bended arm 20
Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.
I, O traveller, shaped with rustic art from a dry poplar, guard this little
field which thou seest on the left, and the cottage and small garden of its
indigent owner, and keep off the greedy hands of the robber. In spring a
many-tinted wreath is placed upon me; in summer's heat ruddy grain; [in
autumn] a luscious grape cluster with vine-shoots, and in the bitter cold
the pale-green olive. The tender she-goat bears from my pasture to the town
milk-distended udders; the well-fattened lamb from my sheepfolds sends back
[its owner] with a heavy handful of money; and the tender calf, 'midst its
mother's lowings, sheds its blood before the temple of the Gods. Hence,
wayfarer, thou shalt be in awe of this God, and it will be profitable to
thee to keep thy hands off. For a punishment is prepared--a roughly-shaped
mentule. "Truly, I am willing," thou sayest; then, truly, behold the farmer
comes, and that same mentule plucked from my groin will become an apt
cudgel in his strong right hand.
XXI.
Aureli, pater essuritionum,
Non harum modo, sed quot aut fuerunt
Aut sunt aut aliis erunt in annis,
Pedicare cupis meos amores.
Nec clam: nam simul es, iocaris una, 5
Haeres ad latus omnia experiris.
Frustra: nam insidias mihi instruentem
Tangem te prior inrumatione.
Atque id si faceres satur, tacerem:
Nunc ipsum id doleo, quod essurire, 10
A me me, puer et sitire discet.
Quare desine, dum licet pudico,
Ne finem facias, sed inrumatus.
XXI.
TO AURELIUS THE SKINFLINT.
Aurelius, father of the famisht crew,
Not sole of starvelings now, but wretches who
Were, are, or shall be in the years to come,
My love, my dearling, fain art thou to strum.
Nor privately; for nigh thou com'st and jestest 5
And to his side close-sticking all things questest.
'Tis vain: while lay'st thou snares for me the worst,
By ---- I will teach thee first.
An food-full thus do thou, my peace I'd keep:
But what (ah me! ah me!) compels me weep 10
Are thirst and famine to my dearling fated.
Cease thou so doing while as modest rated,
Lest to thy will thou win--but ----
Aurelius, father of the famished, in ages past in time now present and in
future years yet to come, thou art longing to paedicate my love. Nor is't
done secretly: for thou art with him jesting, closely sticking at his side,
trying every means. In vain: for, instructed in thy artifice, I'll strike
home beforehand by irrumating thee. Now if thou didst this to work off the
results of full-living I would say naught: but what irks me is that my boy
must learn to starve and thirst with thee. Wherefore, desist, whilst thou
mayst with modesty, lest thou reach the end,--but by being irrumated.
XXII.
Suffenus iste, Vare, quem probe nosti,
Homost venustus et dicax et urbanus,
Idemque longe plurimos facit versus.
Puto esse ego illi milia aut decem aut plura
Perscripta, nec sic ut fit in palimpseston 5
Relata: chartae regiae, novei libri,
Novei umbilici, lora rubra, membrana
Derecta plumbo, et pumice omnia aequata.
Haec cum legas tu, bellus ille et urbanus
Suffenus unus caprimulgus aut fossor 10
Rursus videtur; tantum abhorret ac mutat.
Hoc quid putemus esse? qui modo scurra
Aut siquid hac re scitius videbatur,
Idem infacetost infacetior rure,
Simul poemata attigit, neque idem umquam 15
Aequest beatus ac poema cum scribit:
Tam gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur.
Nimirum idem omnes fallimur, nequest quisquam,
Quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum
Possis. suus cuique attributus est error: 20
Sed non videmus, manticae quod in tergost.
XXII.
TO VARUS ABUSING SUFFENUS.
Varus, yon wight Suffenus known to thee
Fairly for wit, free talk, urbanity,
The same who scribbles verse in amplest store--
Methinks he fathers thousands ten or more
Indited not as wont on palimpsest, 5
But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best
Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead
Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished.
These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane
Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain 10
Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile.
What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while,
Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets,
He now in dullness, dullest villain beats
Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight 15
Ever so happy as when verse he write:
So self admires he with so full delight.
In sooth, we all thus err, nor man there be
But in some matter a Suffenus see
Thou canst: his lache allotted none shall lack 20
Yet spy we nothing of our back-borne pack.
That Suffenus, Varus, whom thou know'st right well, is a man fair spoken,
witty and urbane, and one who makes of verses lengthy store. I think he has
writ at full length ten thousand or more, nor are they set down, as of
custom, on palimpsest: regal paper, new boards, unused bosses, red ribands,
lead-ruled parchment, and all most evenly pumiced. But when thou readest
these, that refined and urbane Suffenus is seen on the contrary to be a
mere goatherd or ditcher-lout, so great and shocking is the change. What
can we think of this? he who just now was seen a professed droll, or e'en
shrewder than such in gay speech, this same becomes more boorish than a
country boor immediately he touches poesy, nor is the dolt e'er as
self-content as when he writes in verse,--so greatly is he pleased with
himself, so much does he himself admire. Natheless, we all thus go astray,
nor is there any man in whom thou canst not see a Suffenus in some one
point. Each of us has his assigned delusion: but we see not what's in the
wallet on our back.
XXIII.
Furei, quoi neque servos est neque arca
Nec cimex neque araneus neque ignis,
Verumst et pater et noverca, quorum
Dentes vel silicem comesse possunt,
Est pulchre tibi cum tuo parente 5
Et cum coniuge lignea parentis.
Nec mirum: bene nam valetis omnes,
Pulchre concoquitis, nihil timetis,
Non incendia, non graves ruinas,
Non furta inpia, non dolos veneni, 10
Non casus alios periculorum.
Atqui corpora sicciora cornu
Aut siquid magis aridumst habetis
Sole et frigore et essuritione.
Quare non tibi sit bene ac beate? 15
A te sudor abest, abest saliva,
Mucusque et mala pituita nasi.
Hanc ad munditiem adde mundiorem,
Quod culus tibi purior salillost,
Nec toto decies cacas in anno, 20
Atque id durius est faba et lapillis;
Quod tu si manibus teras fricesque,
Non umquam digitum inquinare possis.
Haec tu commoda tam beata, Furi,
Noli spernere nec putare parvi, 25
Et sestertia quae soles precari
Centum desine: nam sat es beatus.
XXIII.
TO FURIUS SATIRICALLY PRAISING HIS POVERTY.
Furius! Nor chest, nor slaves can claim,
Bug, Spider, nor e'en hearth aflame,
Yet thine a sire and step-dame who
Wi' tooth can ever flint-food chew!
So thou, and pleasant happy life 5
Lead wi' thy parent's wooden wife.
Nor this be marvel: hale are all,
Well ye digest; no fears appal
For household-arsons, heavy ruin,
Plunderings impious, poison-brewin' 10
Or other parlous case forlorn.
Your frames are hard and dried like horn,
Or if more arid aught ye know,
By suns and frosts and hunger-throe.
Then why not happy as thou'rt hale? 15
Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, and fail
Phlegm and foul snivel from the nose.
Add cleanness that aye cleanlier shows
A bum than salt-pot cleanlier,
Nor ten times cack'st in total year, 20
And harder 'tis than pebble or bean
Which rubbed in hand or crumbled, e'en
On finger ne'er shall make unclean.
Such blessings (Furius!) such a prize
Never belittle nor despise; 25
Hundred sesterces seek no more
With wonted prayer--enow's thy store!
O Furius, who neither slaves, nor coffer, nor bug, nor spider, nor fire
hast, but hast both father and step-dame whose teeth can munch up even
flints,--thou livest finely with thy sire, and with thy sire's wood-carved
spouse. Nor need's amaze! for in good health are ye all, grandly ye digest,
naught fear ye, nor arson nor house-fall, thefts impious nor poison's
furtive cunning, nor aught of perilous happenings whatsoe'er. And ye have
bodies drier than horn (or than aught more arid still, if aught there be),
parched by sun, frost, and famine. Wherefore shouldst thou not be happy
with such weal. Sweat is a stranger to thee, absent also are saliva,
phlegm, and evil nose-snivel. Add to this cleanliness the thing that's
still more cleanly, that thy backside is purer than a salt-cellar, nor
cackst thou ten times in the total year, and then 'tis harder than beans
and pebbles; nay, 'tis such that if thou dost rub and crumble it in thy
hands, not a finger canst thou ever dirty. These goodly gifts and favours,
O Furius, spurn not nor think lightly of; and cease thy 'customed begging
for an hundred sesterces: for thou'rt blest enough!
XXIIII.
O qui flosculus es Iuventiorum,
Non horum modo, sed quot aut fuerunt
Aut posthac aliis erunt in annis,
Mallem divitias Midae dedisses
Isti, quoi neque servus est neque arca, 5
Quam sic te sineres ab illo amari.
'Qui? non est homo bellus?' inquies. est:
Sed bello huic neque servos est neque arca.
Hoc tu quam lubet abice elevaque:
Nec servom tamen ille habet neque arcam. 10
XXIIII.
TO JUVENTIUS CONCERNING THE CHOICE OF A FRIEND.
O of Juventian youths the flowret fair
Not of these only, but of all that were
Or shall be, coming in the coming years,
Better waste Midas' wealth (to me appears)
On him that owns nor slave nor money-chest 5
Than thou shouldst suffer by his love possest.
"What! is he vile or not fair?" "Yes!" I attest,
"Yet owns this man so comely neither slaves nor chest
My words disdain thou or accept at best
Yet neither slave he owns nor money-chest." 10
O thou who art the floweret of Juventian race, not only of these now
living, but of those that were of yore and eke of those that will be in the
coming years, rather would I that thou hadst given the wealth e'en of Midas
to that fellow who owns neither slave nor store, than that thou shouldst
suffer thyself to be loved by such an one. "What! isn't he a fine-looking
man?" thou askest. He is; but this fine-looking man has neither slaves nor
store. Contemn and slight this as it please thee: nevertheless, he has
neither slave nor store.
XXV.
Cinaede Thalle, mollior cuniculi capillo
Vel anseris medullula vel imula oricilla
Vel pene languido senis situque araneoso,
Idemque Thalle turbida rapacior procella,
Cum diva munerarios ostendit oscitantes, 5
Remitte pallium mihi meum, quod involasti,
Sudariumque Saetabum catagraphosque Thynos,
Inepte, quae palam soles habere tamquam avita.
Quae nunc tuis ab unguibus reglutina et remitte,
Ne laneum latusculum manusque mollicellas 10
Inusta turpiter tibi flagella conscribillent,
Et insolenter aestues velut minuta magno
Deprensa navis in mari vesaniente vento.
XXV.
ADDRESS TO THALLUS THE NAPERY-THIEF.
Thou bardache Thallus! more than Coney's robe
Soft, or goose-marrow or ear's lowmost lobe,
Or Age's languid yard and cobweb'd part,
Same Thallus greedier than the gale thou art,
When the Kite-goddess shows thee Gulls agape, 5
Return my muffler thou hast dared to rape,
Saetaban napkins, tablets of Thynos, all
Which (Fool!) ancestral heirlooms thou didst call.
These now unglue-ing from thy claws restore,
Lest thy soft hands, and floss-like flanklets score 10
The burning scourges, basely signed and lined,
And thou unwonted toss like wee barque tyned
'Mid vasty Ocean vexed by madding wind!
O Thallus the catamite, softer than rabbit's fur, or goose's marrow, or
lowmost ear-lobe, limper than the drooping penis of an oldster, in its
cobwebbed must, greedier than the driving storm, such time as the
Kite-Goddess shews us the gaping Gulls, give me back my mantle which thou
hast pilfered, and the Saetaban napkin and Thynian tablets which, idiot,
thou dost openly parade as though they were heirlooms. These now unglue
from thy nails and return, lest the stinging scourge shall shamefully score
thy downy flanks and delicate hands, and thou unwonted heave and toss like
a tiny boat surprised on the vasty sea by a raging storm.
XXVI.
Furi, villula nostra non ad Austri
Flatus oppositast neque ad Favoni
Nec saevi Boreae aut Apeliotae,
Verum ad milia quindecim et ducentos.
O ventum horribilem atque pestilentem! 5
XXVI.
CATULLUS CONCERNING HIS VILLA.
Furius! our Villa never Austral force
Broke, neither set thereon Favonius' course,
Nor savage Boreas, nor Epeliot's strain,
But fifteen thousand crowns and hundreds twain
Wreckt it,--Oh ruinous by-wind, breezy bane! 5
Furius, our villa not 'gainst the southern breeze is pitted nor the western
wind nor cruel Boreas nor sunny east, but sesterces fifteen thousand two
hundred oppose it. O horrible and baleful draught.
XXVII.
Minister vetuli puer Falerni
Inger mi calices amariores,
Vt lex Postumiae iubet magistrae,
Ebriosa acina ebriosioris.
At vos quo lubet hinc abite, lymphae 5
Vini pernicies, et ad severos
Migrate: hic merus est Thyonianus.
XXVII.
TO HIS CUP-BOY.
Thou youngling drawer of Falernian old
Crown me the goblets with a bitterer wine
As was Postumia's law that rules the feast
Than ebriate grape-stone more inebriate.
But ye fare whither please ye (water-nymphs!) 5
To wine pernicious, and to sober folk
Migrate ye: mere Thyonian juice be here!
Boy cupbearer of old Falernian, pour me fiercer cups as bids the laws of
Postumia, mistress of the feast, drunker than a drunken grape. But ye,
hence, as far as ye please, crystal waters, bane of wine, hie ye to the
sober: here the Thyonian juice is pure.
XXVIII.
Pisonis comites, cohors inanis
Aptis sarcinulis et expeditis,
Verani optime tuque mi Fabulle,
Quid rerum geritis? satisne cum isto
Vappa frigoraque et famem tulistis? 5
Ecquidnam in tabulis patet lucelli
Expensum, ut mihi, qui meum secutus
Praetorem refero datum lucello
'O Memmi, bene me ac diu supinum
Tota ista trabe lentus inrumasti.' 10
Sed, quantum video, pari fuistis
Casu: nam nihilo minore verpa
Farti estis. pete nobiles amicos.
At vobis mala multa di deaeque
Dent, opprobria Romulei Remique. 15
XXVIII.
TO FRIENDS ON RETURN FROM TRAVEL.
Followers of Piso, empty band
With your light budgets packt to hand,
Veránius best! Fabúllus mine!
What do ye? Bore ye enough, in fine
Of frost and famine with yon sot? 5
What loss or gain have haply got
Your tablets? so, whenas I ranged
With Praetor, gains for loss were changed.
"O Memmius! thou did'st long and late
---- me supine slow and ----" 10
But (truly see I) in such case
Diddled you were by wight as base
Sans mercy. Noble friends go claim!
Now god and goddess give you grame
Disgrace of Romulus! Remus' shame! 15
Piso's Company, a starveling band, with lightweight knapsacks, scantly
packed, most dear Veranius thou, and my Fabullus eke, how fortunes it with
you? have ye borne frost and famine enow with that sot? Which in your
tablets appear--the profits or expenses? So with me, who when I followed a
praetor, inscribed more gifts than gains. "O Memmius, well and slowly didst
thou irrumate me, supine, day by day, with the whole of that beam." But,
from what I see, in like case ye have been; for ye have been crammed with
no smaller a poker. Courting friends of high rank! But may the gods and
goddesses heap ill upon ye, reproach to Romulus and Remus.
XXVIIII.
Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,
Nisi inpudicus et vorax et aleo,
Mamurram habere quod Comata Gallia
Habebat ante et ultima Britannia?
Cinaede Romule, haec videbis et feres? 5
_Es inpudicus et vorax et aleo._ 5b
Et ille nunc superbus et superfluens
Perambulabit omnium cubilia
Vt albulus columbus aut Adoneus?
Cinaede Romule, haec videbis et feres?
Es inpudicus et vorax et aleo. 10
Eone nomine, imperator unice,
Fuisti in ultima occidentis insula,
Vt ista vostra defututa Mentula
Ducenties comesset aut trecenties?
Quid est alid sinistra liberalitas? 15
Parum expatravit an parum eluatus est?
Paterna prima lancinata sunt bona:
Secunda praeda Pontica: inde tertia
Hibera, quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus.
Timentne Galliae hunc, timent Britanniae? 20
Quid hunc malum fovetis? aut quid hic potest,
Nisi uncta devorare patrimonia?
Eone nomine urbis, o potissimei
Socer generque, perdidistis omnia?
XXVIIII.
TO CÆSAR OF MAMURRA, CALLED MENTULA.
Who e'er could witness this (who could endure
Except the lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut)
That should Mamurra get what hairy Gaul
And all that farthest Britons held whilòme?
(Thou bardache Romulus!) this wilt see and bear? 5
Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut! 5b
He now superb with pride superfluous
Shall go perambulate the bedrooms all
Like white-robed dovelet or Adonis-love.
Romulus thou bardache! this wilt see and bear?
Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut! 10
Is't for such like name, sole Emperor thou!
Thou soughtest extreme Occidental Isle?
That this your ---- Mentula
Millions and Milliards might at will absorb?
What is't but Liberality misplaced? 15
What trifles wasted he, small heirlooms spent?
First his paternal goods were clean dispersed;
Second went Pontus' spoils and for the third,--
Ebro-land,--weets it well gold-rolling Tage.
Fear him the Gallias? Him the Britons' fear? 20
Why cherish this ill-wight? what 'vails he do?
Save fat paternal heritage devour?
Lost ye for such a name, O puissant pair
(Father and Son-in-law), our all-in-all?
Who can witness this, who can brook it, save a whore-monger, a guzzler, and
a gamester, that Mamurra should possess what long-haired Gaul and remotest
Britain erstwhile had. Thou catamite Romulus, this thou'lt see and bear?
Then thou'rt a whore-monger, a guzzler, and a gamester. And shall he now,
superb and o'er replete, saunter o'er each one's bed, as though he were a
snow-plumed dove or an Adonis? Thou catamite Romulus, this thou'lt see and
hear? Then thou'rt a whore-monger, a guzzler, and a gamester. For such a
name, O general unique, hast thou been to the furthest island of the west,
that this thy futtered-out Mentula should squander hundreds of hundreds?
What is't but ill-placed munificence? What trifles has he squandered, or
what petty store washed away? First his patrimony was mangled; secondly the
Pontic spoils; then thirdly the Iberian, which the golden Tagus-stream
knoweth. Do not the Gauls fear this man, do not the Britons quake? Why dost
thou foster this scoundrel? What use is he save to devour well-fattened
inheritances? Wast for such a name, O most puissant father-in-law and
son-in-law, that ye have spoiled the entire world.
XXX.
Alfene inmemor atque unanimis false sodalibus
Iam te nil miseret, dure, tui dulcis amiculi?
Iam me prodere, iam non dubitas fallere, perfide?
Nec facta inpia fallacum hominum caelicolis placent:
Quod tu neglegis, ac me miserum deseris in malis. 5
Eheu quid faciant, dic, homines, cuive habeant fidem?
Certe tute iubebas animam tradere, inique, me
Inducens in amorem, quasi tuta omnia mi forent.
Idem nunc retrahis te ac tua dicta omnia factaque
Ventos inrita ferre ac nebulas aerias sinis. 10
Si tu oblitus es, at di meminerunt, meminit Fides,
Quae te ut paeniteat postmodo facti faciet tui.
XXX.
TO ALFENUS THE PERJUROR.
Alfénus! short of memory, false to comrades dearest-dear,
Now hast no pity (hardened Soul!) for friend and loving fere?
Now to betray me, now to guile thou (traitor!) ne'er dost pause?
Yet impious feats of fraudful men ne'er force the Gods' applause:
When heed'st thou not deserting me (Sad me!) in sorest scathe, 5
Ah say whate'er shall humans do? in whom shall man show faith?
For sure thou bad'st me safely yield my spirit (wretch!) to thee,
Lulling my love as though my life were all security.
The same now dost withdraw thyself and every word and deed
Thou suffer'st winds and airy clouds to sweep from out thy head. 10
But an forget thou, mindful be the Gods, and Faith in mind
Bears thee, and soon shall gar thee rue the deeds by thee design'd.
Alfenus, unmemoried and unfaithful to thy comrades true, is there now no
pity in thee, O hard of heart, for thine sweet loving friend? Dost thou
betray me now, and scruplest not to play me false now, dishonourable one?
Yet the irreverent deeds of traitorous men please not the dwellers in
heaven: this thou takest no heed of, leaving me wretched amongst my ills.
Alas, what may men do, I pray you, in whom put trust? In truth thou didst
bid me entrust my soul to thee, sans love returned, lulling me to love, as
though all [love-returns] were safely mine. Yet now thou dost withdraw
thyself, and all thy purposeless words and deeds thou sufferest to be
wafted away into winds and nebulous clouds. If thou hast forgotten, yet the
gods remember, and in time to come will make thee rue thy doing.
XXXI.
Paeninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque
Ocelle, quascumque in liquentibus stagnis
Marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus,
Quam te libenter quamque laetus inviso,
Vix mi ipse credens Thyniam atque Bithynos 5
Liquisse campos et videre te in tuto.
O quid solutis est beatius curis,
Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
Labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto. 10
Hoc est, quod unumst pro laboribus tantis.
Salve, o venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude:
Gaudete vosque, o Libuae lacus undae:
Ridete, quidquid est domi cachinnorum.
XXXI.
ON RETURN TO SIRMIO AND HIS VILLA.
Sirmio! of Islands and Peninsulas
Eyelet, and whatsoe'er in limpid meres
And vasty Ocean either Neptune owns,
Thy scenes how willing-glad once more I see,
At pain believing Thynia and the Fields 5
Bithynian left, I'm safe to sight thy Site.
Oh what more blessèd be than cares resolved,
When mind casts burthen and by peregrine
Work over wearied, lief we hie us home
To lie reposing in the longed-for bed! 10
This be the single meed for toils so triste.
Hail, O fair Sirmio, in thy lord rejoice:
And ye, O waves of Lybian Lake be glad,
And laugh what laughter pealeth in my home.
Sirmio! Eyebabe of Islands and Peninsulas, which Neptune holds whether in
limpid lakes or on mighty mains, how gladly and how gladsomely do I re-see
thee, scarce crediting that I've left behind Thynia and the Bithynian
champaign, and that safe and sound I gaze on thee. O what's more blissful
than cares released, when the mind casts down its burden, and when wearied
with travel-toils we reach our hearth, and sink on the craved-for couch.
This and only this repays our labours numerous. Hail, lovely Sirmio, and
gladly greet thy lord; and joy ye, wavelets of the Lybian lake; laugh ye
the laughters echoing from my home.
XXXII.
Amabo, mea dulcis Ipsithilla,
Meae deliciae, mei lepores,
Iube ad te veniam meridiatum.
Et si iusseris illud, adiuvato,
Nequis liminis obseret tabellam, 5
Neu tibi lubeat foras abire,
Sed domi maneas paresque nobis
Novem continuas fututiones.
Verum, siquid ages, statim iubeto:
Nam pransus iaceo et satur supinus 10
Pertundo tunicamque palliumque.
XXXII.
CRAVING IPSITHILLA'S LAST FAVOURS.
I'll love my Ipsithilla sweetest,
My desires and my wit the meetest,
So bid me join thy nap o' noon!
Then (after bidding) add the boon
Undraw thy threshold-bolt none dare, 5
Lest thou be led afar to fare;
Nay bide at home, for us prepare
Nine-fold continuous love-delights.
But aught do thou to hurry things,
For dinner-full I lie aback, 10
And gown and tunic through I crack.
I'll love thee, my sweet Ipsithilla, my delight, my pleasure: an thou bid
me come to thee at noontide. And an thou thus biddest, I adjure thee that
none makes fast the outer door [against me], nor be thou minded to gad
forth, but do thou stay at home and prepare for us nine continuous
conjoinings. In truth if thou art minded, give instant summons: for
breakfast o'er, I lie supine and ripe, thrusting through both tunic and
cloak.
XXXIII.
O furum optime balneariorum
Vibenni pater, et cinaede fili,
(Nam dextra pater inquinatiore,
Culo filius est voraciore)
Cur non exilium malasque in oras 5
Itis, quandoquidem patris rapinae
Notae sunt populo, et natis pilosas,
Fili, non potes asse venditare.
XXXIII.
ON THE VIBENII--BATH-THIEVES.
Oh, best of robbers who in Baths delight,
Vibennius, sire and son, the Ingle hight,
(For that the father's hand be fouler one
And with his anus greedier is the Son)
Why not to banishment and evil hours 5
Haste ye, when all the parent's plundering powers
Are public knowledge, nor canst gain a Cent
Son! by the vending of thy pilèd vent.
O, chiefest of pilferers, baths frequenting, Vibennius the father and his
pathic son (for with the right hand is the sire more in guilt, and with his
backside is the son the greedier), why go ye not to exile and ill hours,
seeing that the father's plunderings are known to all folk, and that, son,
thou can'st not sell thine hairy buttocks for a doit?
XXXIIII.
Dianae sumus in fide
Puellae et pueri integri:
_Dianam pueri integri_
Puellaeque canamus.
O Latonia, maximi 5
Magna progenies Iovis,
Quam mater prope Deliam
Deposivit olivam,
Montium domina ut fores
Silvarumque virentium 10
Saltuumque reconditorum
Amniumque sonantum.
Tu Lucina dolentibus
Iuno dicta puerperis,
Tu potens Trivia et notho's 15
Dicta lumine Luna.
Tu cursu, dea, menstruo
Metiens iter annuom
Rustica agricolae bonis
Tecta frugibus exples. 20
Sis quocumque tibi placet
Sancta nomine, Romulique,
Antique ut solita's, bona
Sospites ope gentem.
XXXIIII.
HYMN TO DIANA.
Diana's faith inbred we bear
Youths whole of heart and maidens fair,
Let boys no blemishes impair,
And girls of Dian sing!
O great Latonian progeny, 5
Of greatest Jove descendancy,
Whom mother bare 'neath olive-tree,
Deep in the Delian dell;
That of the mountains reign thou Queen
And forest ranges ever green, 10
And coppices by man unseen,
And rivers resonant.
Thou art Lucína, Juno hight
By mothers lien in painful plight,
Thou puissant Trivia and the Light 15
Bastard, yclept the Lune.
Thou goddess with thy monthly stage,
The yearly march doth mete and guage
And rustic peasant's messuage,
Dost brim with best o' crops, 20
Be hailed by whatso name of grace,
Please thee and olden Romulus' race,
Thy wonted favour deign embrace,
And save with choicest aid.
We, maids and upright youths, are in Diana's care: upright youths and
maids, we sing Diana.
O Latonia, progeny great of greatest Jove, whom thy mother bare 'neath
Delian olive,
That thou mightst be Queen of lofty mounts, of foliaged groves, of remote
glens, and of winding streams.
Thou art called Juno Lucina by the mother in her travail-pangs, thou art
named potent Trivia and Luna with an ill-got light.
Thou, Goddess, with monthly march measuring the yearly course, dost glut
with produce the rustic roofs of the farmer.
Be thou hallowed by whatsoe'er name thou dost prefer; and cherish, with
thine good aid, as thou art wont, the ancient race of Romulus.
XXXV.
Poetae tenero, meo sodali
Velim Caecilio, papyre, dicas,
Veronam veniat, Novi relinquens
Comi moenia Lariumque litus:
Nam quasdam volo cogitationes 5
Amici accipiat sui meique.
Quare, si sapiet, viam vorabit,
Quamvis candida milies puella
Euntem revocet manusque collo
Ambas iniciens roget morari, 10
Quae nunc, si mihi vera nuntiantur,
Illum deperit inpotente amore:
Nam quo tempore legit incohatam
Dindymi dominam, ex eo misellae
Ignes interiorem edunt medullam. 15
Ignosco tibi, Sapphica puella
Musa doctior: est enim venuste
Magna Caecilio incohata mater.
XXXV.
AN INVITATION TO POET CECILIUS.
Now to that tender bard, my Comrade fair,
(Cecilius) say I, "Paper go, declare,
Verona must we make and bid to New
Comum's town-walls and Larian Shores adieu;"
For I determined certain fancies he 5
Accept from mutual friend to him and me.
Wherefore he will, if wise, devour the way,
Though the blonde damsel thousand times essay
Recall his going and with arms a-neck
A-winding would e'er seek his course to check; 10
A girl who (if the truth be truly told)
Dies of a hopeless passion uncontroul'd;
For since the doings of the Díndymus-dame,
By himself storied, she hath read, a flame
Wasting her inmost marrow-core hath burned. 15
I pardon thee, than Sapphic Muse more learn'd,
Damsel: for truly sung in sweetest lays
Was by Cecilius Magna Mater's praise.
To that sweet poet, my comrade, Caecilius, I bid thee, paper, say: that he
hie him here to Verona, quitting New Comum's city-walls and Larius' shore;
for I wish him to give ear to certain counsels from a friend of his and
mine. Wherefore, an he be wise, he'll devour the way, although a milk-white
maid doth thousand times retard his going, and flinging both arms around
his neck doth supplicate delay--a damsel who now, if truth be brought me,
is undone with immoderate love of him. For, since what time she first read
of the Dindymus Queen, flames devour the innermost marrow of the wretched
one. I grant thee pardon, damsel, more learned than the Sapphic muse: for
charmingly has the Mighty Mother been sung by Caecilius.
XXXVI.
Annales Volusi, cacata charta,
Votum solvite pro mea puella:
Nam sanctae Veneri Cupidinique
Vovit, si sibi restitutus essem
Desissemque truces vibrare iambos, 5
Electissima pessimi poetae
Scripta tardipedi deo daturam
Infelicibus ustulanda lignis.
Et haec pessima se puella vidit
Iocose lepide vovere divis. 10
Nunc, o caeruleo creata ponto,
Quae sanctum Idalium Vriosque portus
Quaeque Ancona Cnidumque harundinosam
Colis quaeque Amathunta quaeque Golgos
Quaeque Durrachium Adriae tabernam, 15
Acceptum face redditumque votum,
Si non inlepidum neque invenustumst.
At vos interea venite in ignem,
Pleni ruris et inficetiarum
Annales Volusi, cacata charta. 20
XXXVI.
ON "THE ANNALS"--A SO-CALLED POEM OF VOLUSIUS.
Volusius' Annals, paper scum-bewrayed!
Fulfil that promise erst my damsel made;
Who vowed to Holy Venus and her son,
Cupid, should I return to her anon
And cease to brandish iamb-lines accurst, 5
The writ selected erst of bards the worst
She to the limping Godhead would devote
With slowly-burning wood of illest note.
This was the vilest which my girl could find
With vow facetious to the Gods assigned. 10
Now, O Creation of the azure sea,
Holy Idalium, Urian havenry
Haunting, Ancona, Cnidos' reedy site,
Amathus, Golgos, and the tavern hight
Durrachium--thine Adrian abode-- 15
The vow accepting, recognize the vowed
As not unworthy and unhandsome naught.
But do ye meanwhile to the fire be brought,
That teem with boorish jest of sorry blade,
Volusius' Annals, paper scum-bewrayed. 20
Volusius' Annals, merdous paper, fulfil ye a vow for my girl: for she vowed
to sacred Venus and to Cupid that if I were re-united to her and I desisted
hurling savage iambics, she would give the most elect writings of the
pettiest poet to the tardy-footed God to be burned with ill-omened wood.
And _this_ the saucy minx chose, jocosely and drolly to vow to the gods.
Now, O Creation of the cerulean main, who art in sacred Idalium, and in
Urian haven, and who doth foster Ancona and reedy Cnidos, Amathus and
Golgos, and Dyrrhachium, Adriatic tavern, accept and acknowledge this vow
if it lack not grace nor charm. But meantime, hence with ye to the flames,
crammed with boorish speech and vapid, Annals of Volusius, merdous paper.
XXXVII.
Salax taberna vosque contubernales,
A pileatis nona fratribus pila,
Solis putatis esse mentulas vobis,
Solis licere, quidquid est puellarum,
Confutuere et putare ceteros hircos? 5
An, continenter quod sedetis insulsi
Centum an ducenti, non putatis ausurum
Me una ducentos inrumare sessores?
Atqui putate: namque totius vobis
Frontem tabernae scorpionibus scribam. 10
Puella nam mi, quae meo sinu fugit,
Amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla,
Pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata,
Consedit istic. hanc boni beatique
Omnes amatis, et quidem, quod indignumst, 15
Omnes pusilli et semitarii moechi;
Tu praeter omnes une de capillatis,
Cuniculosae Celtiberiae fili
Egnati, opaca quem bonum facit barba
Et dens Hibera defricatus urina. 20
XXXVII.
TO THE FREQUENTERS OF A LOW TAVERN.
Salacious Tavern and ye taverner-host,
From Pileate Brothers the ninth pile-post,
D'ye claim, you only of the mentule boast,
D'ye claim alone what damsels be the best
To swive: as he-goats holding all the rest? 5
Is't when like boobies sit ye incontinent here,
One or two hundred, deem ye that I fear
Two hundred ---- at one brunt?
Ay, think so, natheless all your tavern-front
With many a scorpion I will over-write. 10
For that my damsel, fro' my breast took flight,
By me so lovèd, as shall loved be none,
Wherefor so mighty wars were waged and won,
Does sit in public here. Ye fain, rich wights,
All woo her: thither too (the chief of slights!) 15
All pitiful knaves and by-street wenchers fare,
And thou, (than any worse), with hanging hair,
In coney-breeding Celtiberia bred,
Egnatius! bonnified by beard full-fed,
And teeth with Spanish urine polishèd. 20
Tavern of lust and you its tippling crowd, (at ninth pile sign-post from
the Cap-donned Brothers) think ye that ye alone have mentules, that 'tis
allowed to you alone to touzle whatever may be feminine, and to deem all
other men mere goats? But, because ye sit, a row of fools numbering one
hundred or haply two hundred, do ye think I dare not irrumate your entire
two hundred--loungers!--at once! Think it! but I'll scrawl all over the
front of your tavern with scorpion-words. For my girl, who has fled from my
embrace (she whom I loved as ne'er a maid shall be beloved--for whom I
fought fierce fights) has seated herself here. All ye, both honest men and
rich, and also, (O cursed shame) all ye paltry back-slum fornicators, are
making hot love to her; and thou above all, one of the hairy-visaged sons
of coney-caverned Celtiberia, Egnatius, whose quality is stamped by
dense-grown beard, and teeth with Spanish urine scrubbed.
XXXVIII.
Malest, Cornifici, tuo Catullo,
Malest, me hercule, et est laboriose,
Et magis magis in dies et horas.
Quem tu, quod minimum facillimumquest,
Qua solatus es adlocutione? 5
Irascor tibi. sic meos amores?
Paulum quid lubet adlocutionis,
Maestius lacrimis Simonideis.
XXXVIII.
A COMPLAINT TO CORNIFICIUS.
Cornificius! 'Tis ill with thy Catullus,
'Tis ill (by Hercules) distressfully:
Iller and iller every day and hour.
Whose soul (as smallest boon and easiest)
With what of comfort hast thou deign'd console? 5
Wi' thee I'm angered! Dost so prize my love?
Yet some consoling utterance had been well
Though sadder 'twere than Simonídean tears.
'Tis ill, Cornificius, with thy Catullus, 'tis ill, by Hercules, and most
untoward; and greater, greater ill, each day and hour! And thou, what
solace givest thou, e'en the tiniest, the lightest, by thy words? I'm wroth
with thee. Is my love but worth this? Yet one little message would cheer
me, though more full of sadness than Simonidean tears.
XXXVIIII.
Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes,
Renidet usque quaque. sei ad rei ventumst
Subsellium, cum orator excitat fletum,
Renidet ille. sei ad pii rogum fili
Lugetur, orba cum flet unicum mater, 5
Renidet ille. quidquid est, ubicumquest,
Quodcumque agit, renidet. hunc habet morbum,
Neque elegantem, ut arbitror, neque urbanum.
Quare monendum test mihi, bone Egnati.
Si urbanus esses aut Sabinus aut Tiburs 10
Aut fartus Vmber aut obesus Etruscus
Aut Lanuinus ater atque dentatus
Aut Transpadanus, ut meos quoque attingam,
Aut quilubet, qui puriter lavit dentes,
Tamen renidere usque quaque te nollem: 15
Nam risu inepto res ineptior nullast.
Nunc Celtiber es: Celtiberia in terra,
Quod quisque minxit, hoc sibi solet mane
Dentem atque russam defricare gingivam,
Vt quo iste vester expolitior dens est, 20
Hoc te amplius bibisse praedicet loti.
XXXVIIII.
ON EGNATIUS OF THE WHITE TEETH.
Egnatius for that owns he teeth snow-white,
Grins ever, everywhere. When placed a wight
In dock, when pleader would draw tears, the while
He grins. When pious son at funeral pile
Mourns, or lone mother sobs for sole lost son, 5
He grins. Whate'er, whene'er, howe'er is done,
Of deed he grins. Such be his malady,
Nor kind, nor courteous--so beseemeth me--
Then take thou good Egnatius, rede of mine!
Wert thou corrupt Sabine or a Tiburtine, 10
Stuffed Umbrian or Tuscan overgrown
Swarthy Lanuvian with his teeth-rows shown,
Transpádan also, that mine own I touch,
Or any washing teeth to shine o'er much,
Yet thy incessant grin I would not see, 15
For naught than laughter silly sillier be.
Thou Celtiber art, in Celtiberia born,
Where man who's urined therewith loves a-morn
His teeth and ruddy gums to scour and score;
So the more polisht are your teeth, the more 20
Argue they sipping stale in ampler store.
Egnatius, who has milk-white teeth, grins for ever and aye. An he be in
court, when counsel excites tears, he grins. An he be at funeral pyre where
one mourns a son devoted, where a bereft mother's tears stream for her only
one, he grins. Whatever it may be, wherever he is, whate'er may happen, he
grins. Such ill habit has he--neither in good taste, well assumed, nor
refined. Wherefore do thou take note from me, my good Egnatius. Be thou
refined Sabine or Tiburtine, paunch-full Umbrian or obese Tuscan, Lanuvian
dusky and large-tusked, or Transpadine (to touch upon mine own folk also),
or whom thou wilt of those who cleanly wash their teeth, still I'd wish
thee not to grin for ever and aye; for than senseless giggling nothing is
more senseless. Now thou'rt a Celtiberian! and in the Celtiberian land each
wight who has urined is wont each morn to scrub with it his teeth and pinky
gums, so that the higher the polish on thy teeth, the greater fund it notes
that thou hast drunk of urine.
XXXX.
Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Ravide,
Agit praecipitem in meos iambos?
Quis deus tibi non bene advocatus
Vecordem parat excitare rixam?
An ut pervenias in ora vulgi? 5
Quid vis? qua lubet esse notus optas?
Eris, quandoquidem meos amores
Cum longa voluisti amare poena.
XXXX.
THREATENING RAVIDUS WHO STOLE HIS MISTRESS.
What thought of folly Rávidus (poor churl!)
Upon my iambs thus would headlong hurl?
What good or cunning counsellor would fain
Urge thee to struggle in such strife insane?
Is't that the vulgar mouth thy name by rote? 5
What will'st thou? Wishest on any wise such note?
Then _shalt_ be noted since my love so lief
For love thou sued'st to thy lasting grief.
What mind ill set, O sorry Ravidus, doth thrust thee rashly on to my
iambics? What god, none advocate of good for thee, doth stir thee to a
senseless contest? That thou may'st be in the people's mouth? What would'st
thou? Dost wish to be famed, no matter in what way? So thou shalt be, since
thou hast aspired to our loved one's love, but by our long-drawn vengeance.
XXXXI.
Ametina puella defututa
Tota milia me decem poposcit,
Ista turpiculo puella naso,
Decoctoris amica Formiani.
Propinqui, quibus est puella curae, 5
Amicos medicosque convocate:
Non est sana puella. nec rogate,
Qualis sit: solet esse imaginosa.
XXXXI.
ON MAMURRA'S MISTRESS.
That Ametina, worn-out whore,
Me for a myriad oft would bore,
That strumpet of th' ignoble nose,
To leman, rakehell Formian chose.
An ye would guard her (kinsmen folk) 5
Your friends and leaches d'ye convoke:
The girl's not sound-sens'd; ask ye naught
Of her complaint: she's love-distraught.
Ametina, out-drainèd maiden, worries me for a whole ten thousand, that
damsel with an outspread nose, _chère amie_ of Formianus the wildling. Ye
near of kin in whose care the maiden is, summon ye both friends and
medicals: for the girl's not sane. Nor ask ye, in what way: she is subject
to delusions.
XXXXII.
Adeste, hendecasyllabi, quot estis
Omnes undique, quotquot estis omnes.
Iocum me putat esse moecha turpis
Et negat mihi nostra reddituram
Pugillaria, si pati potestis. 5
Persequamur eam, et reflagitemus.
Quae sit, quaeritis. illa, quam videtis
Turpe incedere, mimice ac moleste
Ridentem catuli ore Gallicani.
Circumsistite eam, et reflagitate, 10
'Moecha putida, redde codicillos,
Redde, putida moecha, codicillos.'
Non assis facis? o lutum, lupanar,
Aut si perditius potest quid esse.
Sed non est tamen hoc satis putandum. 15
Quod si non aliud potest, ruborem
Ferreo canis exprimamus ore.
Conclamate iterum altiore voce
'Moecha putida, redde codicillos,
Redde, putida moecha, codicillos.' 20
Sed nil proficimus, nihil movetur.
Mutandast ratio modusque vobis,
Siquid proficere amplius potestis,
'Pudica et proba, redde codicillos.'
XXXXII.
ON A STRUMPET WHO STOLE HIS TABLETS.
Come, Hendecasyllabics, many as may
All hither, every one that of you be!
That fulsome harlot makes me laughing-stock
And she refuses at our prayer restore
Our stolen Note-books, an such slights ye bear. 5
Let us pursue her clamouring our demands.
"Who's she?" ye question: yonder one ye sight
Mincingly pacing mime-like, perfect pest,
With jaws wide grinning like a Gallic pup.
Stand all round her dunning with demands, 10
"Return (O rotten whore!) our noting books.
Our noting books (O rotten whore!) return!"
No doit thou car'st? O Mire! O Stuff o' stews!
Or if aught fouler filthier dirt there be.
Yet must we never think these words suffice. 15
But if naught else avail, at least a blush
Forth of that bitch-like brazen brow we'll squeeze.
Cry all together in a higher key
"Restore (O rotten whore!) our noting books,
Our noting books (O rotten whore!) restore!" 20
Still naught avails us, nothing is she moved.
Now must our measures and our modes be changed
An we would anywise our cause advance.
"Restore (chaste, honest Maid!) our noting books!"
Hither, all ye hendecasyllables, as many as may be, from every part, all of
ye, as many soever as there be! A shameless prostitute deems me fair sport,
and denies return to me of our writing tablets, if ye are able to endure
this. Let's after her, and claim them back. "Who may she be," ye ask? That
one, whom ye see strutting awkwardly, stagily, and stiffly, and with a
laugh on her mouth like a Gallic whelp. Throng round her, and claim them
back. "O putrid punk, hand back our writing tablets; hand back, O putrid
punk, our writing tablets." Not a jot dost heed? O Muck, Brothel-Spawn, or
e'en loathsomer if it is possible so to be! Yet think not yet that this is
enough. For if naught else we can extort a blush on thy brazened bitch's
face. We'll yell again in heightened tones, "O putrid punk, hand back our
writing tablets, hand back, O putrid punk, our writing tablets." But naught
we profit, naught she budges. Changed must your measure and your manner be,
an you would further progress make--"O Virgin pure and spotless, hand back
our writing tablets."
XXXXIII.
Salve, nec minimo puella naso
Nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis
Nec longis digitis nec ore sicco
Nec sane nimis elegante lingua,
Decoctoris amica Formiani. 5
Ten provincia narrat esse bellam?
Tecum Lesbia nostra conparatur?
O saeclum insapiens et infacetum!
XXXXIII.
TO MAMURRA'S MISTRESS.
Hail, girl who neither nose of minim size
Owns, nor a pretty foot, nor jetty eyes,
Nor thin long fingers, nor mouth dry of slaver
Nor yet too graceful tongue of pleasant flavour,
Leman to Formian that rake-a-hell. 5
What, can the Province boast of thee as belle?
Thee with my Lesbia durst it make compare?
O Age insipid, of all humour bare!
Hail, O maiden with nose not of the tiniest, with foot lacking shape and
eyes lacking darkness, with fingers scant of length, and mouth not dry and
tongue scant enough of elegance, _chère amie_ of Formianus the wildling.
And thee the province declares to be lovely? With thee our Lesbia is to be
compared? O generation witless and unmannerly!
XXXXIIII.
O funde noster seu Sabine seu Tiburs,
(Nam te esse Tiburtem autumant, quibus non est
Cordi Catullum laedere: at quibus cordist,
Quovis Sabinum pignore esse contendunt)
Sed seu Sabine sive verius Tiburs, 5
Fui libenter in tua suburbana
Villa malamque pectore expuli tussim,
Non inmerenti quam mihi meus venter,
Dum sumptuosas adpeto, dedit, cenas.
Nam, Sestianus dum volo esse conviva, 10
Orationem in Antium petitorem
Plenam veneni et pestilentiae legi.
Hic me gravido frigida et frequens tussis
Quassavit usque dum in tuum sinum fugi
Et me recuravi otioque et urtica. 15
Quare refectus maximas tibi grates
Ago, meum quod non es ulta peccatum.
Nec deprecor iam, si nefaria scripta
Sesti recepso, quin gravidinem et tussim
Non mi, sed ipsi Sestio ferat frigus, 20
Qui tum vocat me, cum malum librum legi.
XXXXIIII.
CATULLUS TO HIS OWN FARM.
O Farm our own, Sabine or Tiburtine,
(For style thee "Tiburs" who have not at heart
To hurt Catullus, whereas all that have
Wage any wager thou be Sabine classed)
But whether Sabine or of Tiburs truer 5
To thy suburban Cottage fared I fain
And fro' my bronchials drave that cursèd cough
Which not unmerited on me my maw,
A-seeking sumptuous banquetings, bestowed.
For I requesting to be Sestius' guest 10
Read against claimant Antius a speech,
Full-filled with poisonous pestilential trash.
Hence a grave frigid rheum and frequent cough
Shook me till fled I to thy bosom, where
Repose and nettle-broth healed all my ills. 15
Wherefore recruited now best thanks I give
To thee for nowise punishing my sins:
Nor do I now object if noisome writs
Of Sestius hear I, but that cold and cough
And rheum may plague, not me, but Sestius' self 20
Who asks me only his ill writs to read.
O, Homestead of ours, whether Sabine or Tiburtine (for that thou'rt
Tiburtine folk concur, in whose heart 'tis not to wound Catullus; but those
in whose heart 'tis, will wager anything thou'rt Sabine) but whether Sabine
or more truly Tiburtine, o'erjoyed was I to be within thy rural
country-home, and to cast off an ill cough from my chest, which--not
unearned--my belly granted me, for grasping after sumptuous feeds. For, in
my wish to be Sestius' guest, his defence against the plaintiff Antius,
crammed with venom and pestilent dulness, did I read through. Hence a chill
heavy rheum and fitful cough shattered me continually until I fled to thine
asylum, and brought me back to health with rest and nettle-broth.
Wherefore, re-manned, I give thee utmost thanks, that thou hast not avenged
my fault. Nor do I pray now for aught but that, should I re-take Sestius'
nefarious script, its frigid vapidness may bring a cold and cough to
Sestius' self; for he but invites me when I read dull stuff.
XXXXV.
Acmen Septumius suos amores
Tenens in gremio 'mea' inquit 'Acme,
Ni te perdite amo atque amare porro
Omnes sum adsidue paratus annos
Quantum qui pote plurimum perire, 5
Solus in Libya Indiave tosta
Caesio veniam obvius leoni.'
Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistra ut ante,
Dextra sternuit adprobationem.
At Acme leviter caput reflectens 10
Et dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos
Illo purpureo ore saviata
'Sic' inquit 'mea vita Septumille,
Huic uni domino usque serviamus,
Vt multo mihi maior acriorque 15
Ignis mollibus ardet in medullis.'
Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistra ut ante,
Dextra sternuit adprobationem.
Nunc ab auspicio bono profecti
Mutuis animis amant amantur. 20
Vnam Septumius misellus Acmen
Mavolt quam Syrias Britanniasque:
Vno in Septumio fidelis Acme
Facit delicias libidinesque.
Quis ullos homines beatiores 25
Vidit, quis Venerem auspicatiorem?
XXXXV.
ON ACME AND SEPTUMIUS.
To Acmé quoth Septumius who his fere
Held on his bosom--"Acmé, mine! next year,
Unless I love thee fondlier than before,
And with each twelve month love thee more and more,
As much as lover's life can slay with yearning, 5
Alone in Lybia, or Hind's clime a-burning,
Be mine to encounter Lion grisly-eyed!"
While he was speaking Love on leftward side
(As wont) approving sneeze from dextral sped.
But Acmé backwards gently bending head, 10
And the love-drunken eyes of her sweet boy
Kissing with yonder rosy mouth, "My joy,"
She murmured, "my life-love Septumillus mine!
Unto one master's hest let's aye incline,
As burns with fuller and with fiercer fire 15
In my soft marrow set, this love-desire!"
While she was speaking, Love from leftward side
(As wont) with sneeze approving rightwards hied.
Now with boon omens wafted on their way,
In mutual fondness, love and loved are they. 20
Love-sick Septumius holds one Acmé's love,
Of Syrias or either Britains high above,
Acmé to one Septumius full of faith
Her love and love-liesse surrendereth.
Who e'er saw mortals happier than these two? 25
Who e'er a better omened Venus knew?
Septumius clasping Acme his adored to his bosom, "Acme mine," quoth he, "if
thee I love not to perdition, nor am prepared to love through all the
future years moreover without cease, as greatly and distractedly as man
may,--alone in Libya or in torrid India may I oppose a steel-eyed lion." As
thus he said, Love, leftwards as before, with approbation rightwards
sneezed. Then Acme slightly bending back her head, and the swimming eyes of
her sweet boy with rose-red lips a-kissing, "So," quoth she, "my life,
Septumillus, this Lord unique let us serve for aye, as more forceful in me
burns the fire greater and keener 'midst my soft marrow." As thus she said,
Love, leftwards as before, with approbation rightwards sneezed. Now with
good auspice urged along, with mutual minds they love and are beloved. The
thrall o' love Septumius his only Acme far would choose, than Tyrian or
Britannian realms: the faithful Acme with Septumius unique doth work her
love delights and wantonings. Whoe'er has seen folk blissfuller, whoe'er a
more propitious union?
XXXXVI.
Iam ver egelidos refert tepores,
Iam caeli furor aequinoctialis
Iocundis Zephyri silescit aureis.
Linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, campi
Nicaeaeque ager uber aestuosae: 5
Ad claras Asiae volemus urbes.
Iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari,
Iam laeti studio pedes vigescunt.
O dulces comitum valete coetus,
Longe quos simul a domo profectos 10
Diversae variae viae reportant.
XXXXVI.
HIS ADIEUX TO BITHYNIA.
Now Spring his cooly mildness brings us back,
Now th' equinoctial heaven's rage and wrack
Hushes at hest of Zephyr's bonny breeze.
Far left (Catullus!) be the Phrygian leas
And summery Nicæa's fertile downs: 5
Fly we to Asia's fame-illumined towns.
Now lust my fluttering thoughts for wayfare long,
Now my glad eager feet grow steady, strong.
O fare ye well, my comrades, pleasant throng,
Ye who together far from homesteads flying, 10
By many various ways come homewards hieing.
Now springtide brings back its mild and tepid airs, now the heaven's fury
equinoctial is calmed by Zephyr's benign breath. The Phrygian meadows are
left behind, O Catullus, and the teeming fields of sun-scorched Nicaea: to
the glorious Asian cities let us haste. Now my palpitating soul craves
wander, now my feet grow vigorous with glad zeal. O charming circlet of
comrades, fare ye well, who are together met from distant homes to which
divers sundered ways lead back.
XXXXVII.
Porci et Socration, duae sinistrae
Pisonis, scabies famesque mundi
Vos Veraniolo meo et Fabullo
Verpus praeposuit Priapus ille?
Vos convivia lauta sumptuose 5
De die facitis? mei sodales
Quaerunt in trivio vocationes?
XXXXVII.
TO PORCIUS AND SOCRATION.
Porcius and Socration, pair sinister
Of Piso, scabs and starvelings of the world,
You to Fabúllus and my Verianólus,
Hath dared yon snipt Priapus to prefer?
Upon rich banquets sumptuously spread 5
Still gorge you daily while my comrades must
Go seek invitals where the three roads fork?
Porcius and Socration, twins in rascality of Piso, scurf and famisht of the
earth, you before my Veraniolus and Fabullus has that prepuce-lacking
Priapus placed? Shall you betimes each day in luxurious opulence banquet?
And must my cronies quest for dinner invitations, [lounging] where the
three cross-roads meet?
XXXXVIII.
Mellitos oculos tuos, Iuventi,
Siquis me sinat usque basiare,
Vsque ad milia basiem trecenta,
Nec umquam videar satur futurus,
Non si densior aridis aristis 5
Sit nostrae seges osculationis.
XXXXVIII.
TO JUVENTIUS.
Those honied eyes of thine (Juventius!)
If any suffer me sans stint to buss,
I'd kiss of kisses hundred thousands three,
Nor ever deem I'd reach satiety,
Not albe denser than dried wheat-ears show 5
The kissing harvests our embraces grow.
Thine honey-sweet eyes, O Juventius, had I the leave to kiss for aye, for
aye I'd kiss e'en to three hundred thousand kisses, nor ever should I reach
to future plenity, not even if thicker than dried wheat sheaves be the
harvest of our kisses.
XXXXVIIII.
Disertissime Romuli nepotum,
Quot sunt quotque fuere, Marce Tulli,
Quotque post aliis erunt in annis,
Gratias tibi maximas Catullus
Agit pessimus omnium poeta, 5
Tanto pessimus omnium poeta
Quanto tu optimus omnium patronus.
XXXXVIIII.
TO MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
Most eloquent 'mid race of Romulus
That is or ever was (Marc Tullius!)
Or in the coming years the light shall see,
His thanks, the warmest, offers unto thee
Catullus, poet sorriest that be, 5
And by such measure poet sorriest,
As thou of pleaders art the bestest best.
Most eloquent of Romulus' descendancy, who are, who have been, O Marcus
Tullius, and who shall later be in after time, to thee doth give his
greatest gratitude Catullus, pettiest of all the poets,--and so much
pettiest of all the poets as thou art peerless 'mongst all pleaders.
L.
Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi
Multum lusimus in meis tabellis,
Vt convenerat esse delicatos.
Scribens versiculos uterque nostrum
Ludebat numero modo hoc modo illoc, 5
Reddens mutua per iocum atque vinum.
Atque illinc abii tuo lepore
Incensus, Licini, facetiisque,
Vt nec me miserum cibus iuvaret,
Nec somnus tegeret quiete ocellos, 10
Sed toto indomitus furore lecto
Versarer cupiens videre lucem,
Vt tecum loquerer, simulque ut essem.
At defessa labore membra postquam
Semimortua lectulo iacebant, 15
Hoc, iocunde, tibi poema feci,
Ex quo perspiceres meum dolorem.
Nunc audax cave sis, precesque nostras,
Oramus, cave despuas, ocelle,
Ne poenas Nemesis reposcat a te. 20
Est vemens dea: laedere hanc caveto.
L.
TO HIS FRIEND LICINIUS.
Idly (Licinius!) we our yesterday,
Played with my tablets much as pleased us play,
In mode becoming souls of dainty strain.
Inditing verses either of us twain
Now in one measure then in other line 5
We rang the changes amid wit and wine.
Then fared I homewards by thy fun so fired
And by thy jests (Licinius!) so inspired,
Nor food my hapless appetite availed
Nor sleep in quiet rest my eyelids veiled, 10
But o'er the bedstead wild in furious plight
I tossed a-longing to behold the light,
So I might talk wi' thee, and be wi' thee.
But when these wearied limbs from labour free
Were on my couchlet strewn half-dead to lie, 15
For thee (sweet wag!) this poem for thee wrote I,
Whereby thou mete and weet my cark and care.
Now be not over-bold, nor this our prayer
Outspit thou (apple of mine eyes!): we pray
Lest doom thee Nemesis hard pain repay:-- 20
She's a dire Goddess, 'ware thou cross her way.
Yestreen, Licinius, in restful day, much mirthful verse we flashed upon my
tablets, as became us, men of fancy. Each jotting versicles in turn sported
first in this metre then in that, exchanging mutual epigrams 'midst jokes
and wine. But I departed thence, afire, Licinius, with thy wit and
drolleries, so that food was useless to my wretched self; nor could sleep
close mine eyes in quiet, but all o'er the bed in restless fury did I toss,
longing to behold daylight that with thee I might speak, and again we might
be together. But afterwards, when my limbs, weakened by my restless
labours, lay stretched in semi-death upon the bed, this poem, O jocund one,
I made for thee, from which thou mayst perceive my dolour. Now 'ware thee
of presumptuousness, and our pleadings 'ware thee of rejecting, we pray
thee, eye-babe of ours, lest Nemesis exact her dues from thee. She is a
forceful Goddess; 'ware her wrath.
LI.
Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
Ille, si fas est, superare divos,
Qui sedens adversus identidem te
Spectat et audit
Dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis 5
Eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
* * * *
Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma demanat, sonitu suopte 10
Tintinant aures geminae, teguntur
Lumina nocte.
LIb.
Otium, Catulle, tibi molestumst:
Otio exultas nimiumque gestis. 15
Otium et reges prius et beatas
Perdidit urbes.
LI.
TO LESBIA.
Peer of a God meseemeth he,
Nay passing Gods (and that can be!)
Who all the while sits facing thee
Sees thee and hears
Thy low sweet laughs which (ah me!) daze 5
Mine every sense, and as I gaze
Upon thee (Lesbia!) o'er me strays
* * * *
My tongue is dulled, my limbs adown
Flows subtle flame; with sound its own 10
Rings either ear, and o'er are strown
Mine eyes with night.
LIb.
Ease has thy lot, Catullus, crost,
Ease gladdens thee at heaviest cost, 15
Ease killed the Kings ere this and lost
The tallest towns.
He to me to be peer to a god doth seem, he, if such were lawful, to
o'er-top the gods, who sitting oft a-front of thee doth gaze on thee, and
doth listen to thine laughter lovely, which doth snatch away from sombre me
mine every sense: for instant falls my glance on thee, Lesbia, naught is
left to me [of voice], but my tongue is numbed, a keen-edged flame spreads
through my limbs, with sound self-caused my twin ears sing, and mine eyes
are enwrapped with night.
Sloth, O Catullus, to thee is hurtful: in sloth beyond measure dost thou
exult and pass thy life. Sloth hath erewhile ruined rulers and gladsome
cities.
LII.
Quid est, Catulle? quid moraris emori?
Sella in curuli struma Nonius sedet,
Per consulatum peierat Vatinius:
Quid est, Catulle? quid moraris emori?
LII.
CATULLUS TO HIMSELF.
What is't, Catullus? Why delay to out die?
That Wen hight Nonius sits in curule chair,
For Consulship Vatinius false doth swear;
What is't, Catullus? Why delay to out die?
Prithee Catullus, why delay thine death? Nonius the tumour is seated in the
curule chair, Vatinius forswears himself for consul's rank: prithee
Catullus, why delay thine death?
LIII.
Risi nescioquem modo e corona,
Qui, cum mirifice Vatiniana
Meus crimina Calvos explicasset,
Admirans ait haec manusque tollens,
'Di magni, salaputium disertum!' 5
LIII.
A JEST CONCERNING CALVUS.
I laughed at one 'mid Forum-crowd unknown
Who, when Vatinius' crimes in wondrous way
Had by my Calvus been explained, exposed,
His hand upraising high admiring cried
"Great Gods! the loquent little Doodle-diddle!" 5
I laughed at I know not whom in the crowded court who, when with admirable
art Vatinius' crimes my Calvus had set forth, with hands uplifted and
admiring mien thus quoth "Great Gods, the fluent little Larydoodle!"
LIIII.
Othonis caput oppidost pusillum
* * * *
Neri rustica semilauta crura,
Subtile et leve peditum Libonis.
* * * *
Si non omnia displicere vellem
Tibi et Fuficio seni recocte 5
LIIIIb.
Irascere iterum meis iambis
Inmerentibus, unice imperator.
LIIII.
TO JULIUS CÆSAR. (?)
The head of Otho, puniest of pates
* * * *
The rustic half-washt shanks of Nerius
And Libo's subtle silent fizzling-farts.
* * * *
I wish that leastwise these should breed disgust
In thee and old Fuficius, rogue twice-cookt. 5
LIIIIb.
Again at these mine innocent iamb-lines
Wi' wrath be wrothest; unique Emperor!
Otho's head is paltry past all phrase * * * the uncouth semi-soaped shanks
of Nerius, the slender soundless fizzlings of Libo * * * if not all things
I wish would displease thee and Fuficius, the white-headed and
green-tailed.
Anew thou shalt be enraged at my harmless iambics, emperor unique.
LV.
Oramus, si forte non molestumst,
Demostres, ubi sint tuae tenebrae.
Te campo quaesivimus minore,
Te in circo, te in omnibus libellis,
Te in templo summi Iovis sacrato. 5
In Magni simul ambulatione
Femellas omnes, amice, prendi,
Quas vultu vidi tamen serenas.
A, vel te sic ipse flagitabam,
'Camerium mihi, pessimae puellae.' 10
Quaedam inquit, nudum sinum reducens,
'En heic in roseis latet papillis.'
Sed te iam ferre Herculei labos est. 13
Non custos si fingar ille Cretum, 23
Non si Pegaseo ferar volatu,
Non Ladas ego pinnipesve Perseus, 25
Non Rhesi nivea citaque biga:
Adde huc plumipedes volatilesque,
Ventorumque simul require cursum:
Quos cunctos, Cameri, mihi dicares,
Defessus tamen omnibus medullis 30
Et multis langoribus peresus
Essem te mihi, amice, quaeritando. 32
Tanto ten fastu negas, amice? 14
Dic nobis ubi sis futurus, ede
Audacter, conmitte, crede lucei.
Num te lacteolae tenent puellae?
Si linguam clauso tenes in ore,
Fructus proicies amoris omnes:
Verbosa gaudet Venus loquella. 20
Vel si vis, licet obseres palatum,
Dum vostri sim particeps amoris.
LV.
OF HIS FRIEND CAMERIUS.
We pray, an' haply irk it not when prayed,
Show us where shadowed hidest thou in shade!
Thee throughout Campus Minor sought we all,
Thee in the Circus, thee in each bookstall,
Thee in Almighty Jove's fane consecrate. 5
Nor less in promenade titled from The Great
(Friend!) I accosted each and every quean,
But mostly madams showing mien serene,
For thee I pestered all with many pleas--
"Give me Camérius, wanton baggages!" 10
Till answered certain one a-baring breasts
"Lo, 'twixt these rosy paps he haply rests!"
But now to find thee were Herculean feat. 13
Not if I feignèd me that guard of Crete, 23
Not if with Pegasèan wing I sped,
Or Ladas I or Perseus plumiped, 25
Or Rhesus borne in swifty car snow-white:
Add the twain foot-bewing'd and fast of flight,
And of the cursive winds require the blow:
All these (Camérius!) couldst on me bestow.
Tho' were I wearied to each marrow bone 30
And by many o' languors clean forgone
Yet I to seek thee (friend!) would still assay. 32
In such proud lodging (friend) wouldst self denay? 14
Tell us where haply dwell'st thou, speak outright,
Be bold and risk it, trusting truth to light,
Say do these milk-white girls thy steps detain?
If aye in tight-sealed lips thy tongue remain,
All Amor's fruitage thou shalt cast away:
Verbose is Venus, loving verbal play! 20
But, an it please thee, padlockt palate bear,
So in your friendship I have partner-share.
We beg, if maybe 'tis not untoward, thou'lt shew us where may be thine
haunt sequestered. Thee did we quest within the Lesser Fields, thee in the
Circus, thee in every bookshop, thee in holy fane of highmost Jove. In
promenade yclept "The Great," the crowd of cocottes straightway did I stop,
O friend, accosting those whose looks I noted were unruffled. And for thee
loudly did I clamour, "Restore to me Camerius, most giddy girls." Quoth
such-an-one, her bosom bare a-shewing, "Look! 'twixt rose-red paps he
shelters him." But labour 'tis of Hercules thee now to find. Not were I
framed the Cretan guard, nor did I move with Pegasean wing, nor were I
Ladas, or Persius with the flying foot, or Rhesus with swift and snowy
team: to these add thou the feathery-footed and winged ones, ask likewise
fleetness of the winds: which all united, O Camerius, couldst thou me
grant, yet exhausted in mine every marrow and with many a faintness
consumed should I be in my quest for thee, O friend. Why withdraw thyself
in so much pride, O friend? Tell us where thou wilt be found, declare it
boldly, give up the secret, trust it to the light. What, do the milk-white
maidens hold thee? If thou dost hold thy tongue closed up in mouth, thou
squanderest Love's every fruit: for Venus joys in many-worded babblings.
Yet if thou wishest, thou mayst bar thy palate, if I may be a sharer in thy
love.
LVI.
Orem ridiculam, Cato, et iocosam
Dignamque auribus et tuo cachinno.
Ride, quidquid amas, Cato, Catullum:
Res est ridicula et nimis iocosa.
Deprendi modo pupulum puellae 5
Trusantem: hunc ego, si placet Dionae,
Protelo rigida mea cecidi.
LVI.
TO CATO, DESCRIBING A "BLACK JOKER."
O risible matter (Cato!) and jocose,
Digne of thy hearing, of thy sneering digne.
Laugh (Cato!) an thou love Catullus thine;
The thing is risible, nay, too jocose.
Erstwhile I came upon a lad who a lass 5
Was ---- and (so please it Dion!) I
Pierced him with stiffest staff and did him die.
O thing ridiculous, Cato, and facetious, and worthy of thine ears and of
thy laughter. Laugh, Cato, the more thou lovest Catullus: the thing is
ridiculous, and beyond measure facetious. Just now I caught a boy
a-thrusting in a girl: and on him (so please you, Dione) with rigid spear
of mine I fell.
LVII.
Pulcre convenit inprobis cinaedis,
Mamurrae pathicoque Caesarique.
Nec mirum: maculae pares utrisque,
Vrbana altera et illa Formiana,
Inpressae resident nec eluentur: 5
Morbosi pariter, gemelli utrique
Vno in lectulo, erudituli ambo,
Non hic quam ille magis vorax adulter,
Rivales sociei puellularum.
Pulcre convenit inprobis cinaedis. 10
LVII.
ON MAMURRA AND JULIUS CÆSAR.
Right well are paired these Cinaedes sans shame
Mamurra and Cæsar, both of pathic fame.
No wonder! Both are fouled with foulest blight,
One urban being, Formian t'other wight,
And deeply printed with indelible stain: 5
Morbose is either, and the twin-like twain
Share single Couchlet; peers in shallow lore,
Nor this nor that for lechery hungers more,
As rival wenchers who the maidens claim
Right well are paired these Cinaedes sans shame. 10
A comely couple of shameless catamites, Mamurra and Caesar, pathics both.
Nor needs amaze: they share like stains--this, Urban, the other,
Formian,--which stay deep-marked nor can they be got rid of. Both morbidly
diseased through pathic vice, the pair of twins lie in one bed, alike in
erudition, one not more than other the greater greedier adulterer, allied
rivals of the girls. A comely couple of shameless catamites.
LVIII.
Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,
Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,
Nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
Glubit magnanimos Remi nepotes. 5
LVIII.
ON LESBIA WHO ENDED BADLY.
Cælius! That Lesbia of ours, that Lesbia,
That only Lesbia by Catullus loved,
Than self, far fondlier, than all his friends,
She now where four roads fork, and wind the wynds
Husks the high-minded scions Remus-sprung. 5
O Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia, the self-same Lesbia whom Catullus more
than himself and all his own did worship, now at cross-roads and in alleys
husks off the mettlesome descendants of Remus.
LVIIII.
Bononiensis Rufa Rufulum fellat,
Vxor Meneni, saepe quam in sepulcretis
Vidistis ipso rapere de rogo cenam,
Cum devolutum ex igne prosequens panem
Ab semiraso tunderetur ustore. 5
LVIIII.
ON RUFA.
Rúfa the Bolognese drains Rufule dry,
(Wife to Menenius) she 'mid tombs you'll spy,
The same a-snatching supper from the pyre
Following the bread-loaves rolling forth the fire
Till frapped by half-shaved body-burner's ire. 5
Rufa of Bononia lends her lips to Rufulus, she the wife of Menenius, whom
oft among the sepulchres ye have seen clutching her meal from the funeral
pile, when pursuing the bread which has rolled from the fire, whilst she
was being buffeted by a semi-shorn corpse-burner.
LX.
Num te leaena montibus Libystinis
Aut Scylla latrans infima inguinum parte
Tam mente dura procreavit ac taetra,
Vt supplicis vocem in novissimo casu
Contemptam haberes a! nimis fero corde? 5
LX.
TO A CRUEL CHARMER.
Bare thee some lioness wild in Lybian wold?
Or Scylla barking from low'st inguinal fold?
With so black spirit, of so dure a mould,
E'en voice of suppliant must thou disregard
In latest circumstance ah, heart o'er hard? 5
Did a lioness of the Libyan Hills, or Scylla yelping from her lowmost
groin, thee procreate, with mind so hard and horrid, that thou hast
contempt upon a suppliant's voice in calamity's newest stress? O heart
o'ergreatly cruel.
LXI.
Collis o Heliconii
Cultor, Vraniae genus,
Qui rapis teneram ad virum
Virginem, o Hymenaee Hymen,
O Hymen Hymenaee, 5
Cinge tempora floribus
Suave olentis amaraci,
Flammeum cape, laetus huc
Huc veni niveo gerens
Luteum pede soccum, 10
Excitusque hilari die
Nuptialia concinens
Voce carmina tinnula
Pelle humum pedibus, manu
Pineam quate taedam. 15
Namque Vinia Manlio,
Qualis Idalium colens
Venit ad Phrygium Venus
Iudicem, bona cum bona
Nubet alite virgo, 20
Floridis velut enitens
Myrtus Asia ramulis,
Quos Hamadryades deae
Ludicrum sibi rosido
Nutriunt umore. 25
Quare age huc aditum ferens
Perge linquere Thespiae
Rupis Aonios specus,
Nympha quos super inrigat
Frigerans Aganippe, 30
Ac domum dominam voca
Coniugis cupidam novi,
Mentem amore revinciens,
Vt tenax hedera huc et huc
Arborem inplicat errans. 35
Vosque item simul, integrae
Virgines, quibus advenit
Par dies, agite in modum
Dicite 'o Hymenaee Hymen,
O Hymen Hymenaee,' 40
Vt lubentius, audiens
Se citarier ad suom
Munus, huc aditum ferat
Dux bonae Veneris, boni
Coniugator amoris. 45
Quis deus magis anxiis
Est petendus amantibus?
Quem colent homines magis
Caelitum? o Hymenaee Hymen,
O Hymen Hymenaee. 50
Te suis tremulus parens
Invocat, tibi virgines
Zonula soluunt sinus,
Te timens cupida novos
Captat aure maritus. 55
Tu fero iuveni in manus
Floridam ipse puellulam
Dedis a gremio suae
Matris, o Hymenaee Hymen,
O Hymen Hymenaee. 60
Nil potest sine te Venus,
Fama quod bona conprobet,
Commodi capere: at potest
Te volente. quis huic deo
Conpararier ausit? 65
Nulla quit sine te domus
Liberos dare, nec parens
Stirpe cingier: at potest
Te volente. quis huic deo
Conpararier ausit? 70
Quae tuis careat sacris,
Non queat dare praesides
Terra finibus: at queat
Te volente. quis huic deo
Conpararier ausit? 75
Claustra pandite ianuae,
Virgo ades. viden ut faces
Splendidas quatiunt comas?
Tardet ingenuos pudor:
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
Quem tamen magis audiens 80
Flet, quod ire necesse est. 81
Flere desine. non tibi, A- (86)
runculeia, periculumst,
Nequa femina pulchrior
Clarum ab Oceano diem 85
Viderit venientem. (90)
Talis in vario solet
Divitis domini hortulo
Stare flos hyacinthinus.
Sed moraris, abit dies: 90
_Prodeas, nova nupta._
Prodeas, nova nupta, si
Iam videtur, et audias
Nostra verba. vide ut faces
Aureas quatiunt comas: 95
Prodeas, nova nupta.
Non tuos levis in mala
Deditus vir adultera
Probra turpia persequens
A tuis teneris volet 100
Secubare papillis,
Lenta quin velut adsitas
Vitis inplicat arbores,
Inplicabitur in tuom
Conplexum. sed abit dies: 105
Prodeas, nova nupta.
O cubile, quod omnibus
* * * *
* * * *
* * * * 110
Candido pede lecti,
Quae tuo veniunt ero,
Quanta gaudia, quae vaga
Nocte, quae medio die
Gaudeat! sed abit dies: 115
Prodeas, nova nupta.
Tollite, o pueri, faces:
Flammeum video venire.
Ite, concinite in modum
'O Hymen Hymenaee io, 120
O Hymen Hymenaee.'
Ne diu taceat procax
Fescennina iocatio,
Nec nuces pueris neget
Desertum domini audiens 125
Concubinus amorem.
Da nuces pueris, iners
Concubine: satis diu
Lusisti nucibus: lubet
Iam servire Talasio. 130
Concubine, nuces da.
Sordebant tibi vilicae,
Concubine, hodie atque heri:
Nunc tuom cinerarius
Tondet os. miser a miser 135
Concubine, nuces da.
Diceris male te a tuis
Vnguentate glabris marite
Abstinere: sed abstine.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 140
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Scimus haec tibi quae licent
Sola cognita: sed marito
Ista non eadem licent.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 145
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Nupta, tu quoque, quae tuos
Vir petet, cave ne neges,
Ni petitum aliunde eat.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 150
O Hymen Hymenaee.
En tibi domus ut potens
Et beata viri tui,
Quae tibi sine fine erit
(O Hymen Hymenaee io, 155
O Hymen Hymenaee),
Vsque dum tremulum movens
Cana tempus anilitas
Omnia omnibus adnuit.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 160
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Transfer omine cum bono
Limen aureolos pedes,
Rasilemque subi forem.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 165
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Aspice, intus ut accubans
Vir tuos Tyrio in toro
Totus inmineat tibi.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 170
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Illi non minus ac tibi
Pectore uritur intimo
Flamma, sed penite magis.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 175
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Mitte brachiolum teres,
Praetextate, puellulae:
Iam cubile adeat viri.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 180
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Vos bonae senibus viris
Cognitae bene feminae,
Collocate puellulam.
O Hymen Hymenaee io, 185
O Hymen Hymenaee.
Iam licet venias, marite:
Vxor in thalamo tibist
Ore floridulo nitens,
Alba parthenice velut 190
Luteumve papaver.
At, marite, (ita me iuvent
Caelites) nihilo minus
Pulcher es, neque te Venus
Neglegit. sed abit dies: 195
Perge, ne remorare.
Non diu remoratus es,
Iam venis. bona te Venus
Iuverit, quoniam palam
Quod cupis capis et bonum 200
Non abscondis amorem.
Ille pulveris Africei
Siderumque micantium
Subducat numerum prius,
Qui vostri numerare volt 205
Multa milia ludei.
Ludite ut lubet, et brevi
Liberos date. non decet
Tam vetus sine liberis
Nomen esse, sed indidem 210
Semper ingenerari.
Torquatus volo parvolus
Matris e gremio suae
Porrigens teneras manus
Dulce rideat ad patrem 215
Semhiante labello.
Sit suo similis patri
Manlio et facile inscieis
Noscitetur ab omnibus
Et pudicitiam suae 220
Matris indicet ore.
Talis illius a bona
Matre laus genus adprobet,
Qualis unica ab optima
Matre Telemacho manet 225
Fama Penelopeo.
Claudite ostia, virgines:
Lusimus satis. at, bonei
Coniuges, bene vivite et
Munere adsiduo valentem 230
Exercete inventam.
LXI.
EPITHALAMIUM ON VINIA AND MANLIUS.
1.
Of Helicon-hill, O Thou that be
Haunter, Urania's progeny,
Who hurriest soft virginity
To man, O Hymenæus Hymen,
O Hymen Hymenæus. 5
2.
About thy temples bind the bloom,
Of Marjoram flow'ret scented sweet;
Take flamey veil: glad hither come
Come hither borne by snow-hue'd feet
Wearing the saffron'd sock. 10
3.
And, roused by day of joyful cheer,
Carolling nuptial lays and chaunts
With voice as silver-ringing clear,
Beat ground with feet, while brandisht flaunts
Thy hand the piney torch. 15
4.
For Vinia comes by Manlius woo'd,
As Venus on th' Idalian crest,
Before the Phrygian judge she stood
And now with blessèd omens blest,
The maid is here to wed. 20
5.
A maiden shining bright of blee,
As Myrtle branchlet Asia bred,
Which Hamadryad deity
As toy for joyance aye befed
With humour of the dew. 25
6.
Then hither come thou, hieing lief,
Awhile to leave th' Aonian cave,
Where 'neath the rocky Thespian cliff
Nymph Aganippe loves to lave
In cooly waves outpoured. 30
7.
And call the house-bride, homewards bring
Maid yearning for new married fere,
Her mind with fondness manacling,
As the tough ivy here and there
Errant the tree enwinds. 35
8.
And likewise ye, clean virginal
Maidens, to whom shall haps befall
Like day, in measure join ye all
Singing, O Hymenæus Hymen,
O Hymen Hymenæus. 40
9.
That with more will-full will a-hearing
The call to office due, he would
Turn footsteps hither, here appearing,
Guide to good Venus, and the good
Lover conjoining strait. 45
10.
What God than other Godheads more
Must love-sick wights for aid implore?
Whose Godhead foremost shall adore
Mankind? O Hymenæus Hymen,
O Hymen Hymenæus. 50
11.
Thee for his own the trembling sire
Invokes, thee Virgins ever sue
Who laps of zone to loose aspire,
And thee the bashful bridegrooms woo
With ears that long to hear. 55
12.
Thou to the hand of love-fierce swain
Deliverest maiden fair and fain,
From mother's fondling bosom ta'en
Perforce, O Hymenæus Hymen
O Hymen Hymenæus. 60
13.
Thou lacking, Venus ne'er avails--
While Fame approves for honesty--
Love-joys to lavish: ne'er she fails
Thou willing:--with such Deity
Whoe'er shall dare compare? 65
14.
Thou wanting, never son and heir
The Hearth can bear, nor parents be
By issue girt, yet can it bear,
Thou willing:--with such Deity,
Whoe'er shall dare compare? 70
15.
An lack a land thy sacring rite,
The perfect rule we ne'er shall see
Reach Earth's far bourne; yet such we sight,
Thou willing:--with such Deity
Whoe'er shall dare compare? 75
16.
Your folds ye gateways wide-ope swing!
The maiden comes. Seest not the sheen
Of links their splendent tresses fling?
Let shame retard the modest mien.
* * * *
17.
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
Who more she hears us weeps the more, 80
That needs she must advance. 81
18.
Cease raining tear-drops! not for thee, (86)
Aurunculeia, risk we deem,
That fairer femininety
Clear day outdawned from Ocean stream 85
Shall ever more behold. (90)
19.
Such in the many-tinted bower
Of rich man's garden passing gay
Upstands the hyacinthine flower.
But thou delayest, wanes the day: 90
_Prithee, come forth new Bride._
20.
Prithee, come forth new Bride! methinks,
Drawing in sight, the talk we hold
Thou haply hearest. See the Links!
How shake their locks begilt with gold: 95
Prithee, new Bride come forth.
21.
Not lightly given thy mate to ill
Joys and adulterous delights
Foul fleshly pleasures seeking still
Shall ever choose he lie o' nights 100
Far from thy tender paps.
22.
But as with pliant shoots the vine
Round nearest tree-trunk winds her way,
He shall be ever twined in thine
Embraces:--yet, lo! wanes the day: 105
Prithee, come forth new Bride!
23.
Couchlet which to me and all
* * * *
* * * *
* * * * 110
With bright white bedstead foot.
24.
What joys the lord of thee betide!
What love-liesse on vaguing way
O' nights! What sweets in morning tide
For thee be stored! Yet wanes the day: 115
Prithee, come forth fresh Bride!
25.
Your lighted links, O boys, wave high:
I see the flamey veil draw nigh:
Hie, sing in merry mode and cry
"O Hymen Hymenæus io, 120
O Hymen Hymenæus!"
26.
Lest longer mute tongue stays that joys
In festal jest, from Fescennine,
Nor yet denay their nuts to boys,
He-Concubine! who learns in fine 125
His lordling's love is fled.
27.
Throw nuts to boys thou idle all
He-Concubine! wast fain full long
With nuts to play: now pleased as thrall
Be thou to swell Talasios' throng: 130
He-Concubine throw nuts.
28.
Wont thou at peasant-girls to jape
He-whore! Thy Lord's delight the while:
Now shall hair-curling chattel scrape
Thy cheeks: poor wretch, ah! poor and vile:-- 135
He-Concubine, throw nuts.
29.
'Tis said from smooth-faced ingle train
(Anointed bridegroom!) hardly fain
Hast e'er refrained; now do refrain!
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 140
O Hymen Hymenæus!
30.
We know that naught save licit rites
Be known to thee, but wedded wights
No more deem lawful such delights.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 145
O Hymen Hymenæus.
31.
Thou too, O Bride, whatever dare
Thy groom, of coy rebuff beware,
Lest he to find elsewhither fare.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 150
O Hymen Hymenæus.
32.
Lo! here the house of high degree
Thy husband's puissant home to be,
Which ever shall obey thy gree.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 155
O Hymen Hymenæus!
33.
Till Time betide when eld the hoar
Thy head and temples trembling o'er
Make nod to all things evermore.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 160
O Hymen Hymenæus.
34.
O'erstep with omen meetest meet
The threshold-stone thy golden feet
Up, past the polisht panels fleet.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 165
O Hymen Hymenæus.
35.
Within bestrewn thy bridegroom see
On couch of Tyrian cramoisy
All imminent awaiting thee.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 170
O Hymen Hymenæus.
36.
For in his breast not less than thine
Burn high the flames that deepest shrine,
Yet his the lowe far deeper lien.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 175
O Hymen Hymenæus.
37.
Let fall the maid's soft arms, thou fair
Boy purple-hem'd: now be thy care
Her bridegroom's couch she seek and share.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 180
O Hymen Hymenæus.
38.
Ye wives time-tried to husbands wed,
Well-known for chastity inbred,
Dispose the virginette a-bed.
O Hymen Hymenæus io, 185
O Hymen Hymenæus.
39.
Groom, now 'tis meet thou hither pace,
With bride in genial bed to blend,
For sheenly shines her flowery face
Where the white chamomiles contend 190
With poppies blushing red.
40.
Yet bridegroom (So may Godhead deign
Help me!) nowise in humbler way
Art fair, nor Venus shall disdain
Thy charms, but look! how wanes the day: 195
Forward, nor loiter more!
41.
No longer loitering makest thou,
Now comest thou. May Venus good
Aid thee when frankly takest thou
Thy wishes won, nor true Love woo'd 200
Thou carest to conceal.
42.
Of Afric's wolds and wilds each grain,
Or constellations glistening,
First reckon he that of the twain
To count alone were fain to bring 205
The many thousand joys.
43.
Play as ye please: soon prove ye deft
At babying babes,--'twere ill design'd
A name thus ancient should be left
Heirless, but issue like of kind 210
Engendered aye should be.
44.
A wee Torquátus fain I'd see
Encradled on his mother's breast
Put forth his tender puds while he
Smiles to his sire with sweetest gest 215
And liplets half apart.
45.
Let son like father's semblance show
(Manlius!) so with easy guess
All know him where his sire they know,
And still his face and form express 220
His mother's honest love.
46.
Approve shall fair approof his birth
From mother's seed-stock generous,
As rarest fame of mother's worth
Unique exalts Telemachus 225
Penelope's own son.
47.
Fast close the door-leaves, virgin band:
Enow we've played. But ye the fair
New-wedded twain live happy, and
Functions of lusty married pair 230
Exercise sans surcease.
O Fosterer of the Helicon Hill, sprung from Urania, who beareth the gentle
virgin to her mate, O Hymenaeus Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Twine round thy temples sweet-smelling flowerets of marjoram; put on thy
gold-tinted veil; light-hearted, hither, hither haste, bearing on snowy
foot the golden-yellow sandal:
And a-fire with the joyous day, chanting wedding melodies with ringing
voice, strike the ground with thy feet, with thine hand swing aloft the
pine-link.
For Vinia--fair as Idalian Venus, when stood before the Phrygian judge--a
virgin fair, weds Manlius 'midst happy auspices.
She, bright-shining as the Asian myrtle florid in branchlets, which the
Hamadryads nurture for their pleasure with besprinkled dew.
Wherefore, hither! leaving the Aonian grot in the Thespian Rock, o'er which
flows the chilling stream of Aganippe.
And summon homewards the mistress, eager for her new yoke, firm-prisoning
her soul in love; as tight-clasping ivy, wandering hither, thither, enwraps
the tree around.
And also ye, upright virgins, for whom a like day is nearing, chant ye in
cadence, singing "O Hymenaeus Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaeus!"
That more freely, hearing himself to his duty called, will he bear hither
his presence, Lord of true Venus, uniter of true lovers.
What god is worthier of solicitation by anxious amourists? Whom of the
celestials do men worship more greatly? O Hymenaeus Hymen, O Hymen
Hymenaeus!
Thee for his young the trembling father beseeches, for thee virgins unclasp
the zone from their breasts, for thee the fear-full bridegroom harkeneth
with eager ear.
Thou bearest to the youngster's arms that flower-like damsel, taken from
her mother's bosom, O Hymenaeus Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Nor lacking thee may Venus take her will with fair Fame's approbation; but
she may, with thy sanction. With such a God who dares compare?
Lacking thee, no house can yield heirs, nor parent be surrounded by
offspring; but they may, with thy sanction. With such a God who dares
compare?
Nor lacking thy rites may our land be protected e'en to its boundaries; but
it may, with thy sanction. With such a God who dares compare?
Gates open wide: the virgin is here. See how the torch-flakes shake their
gleaming locks? Let shame retard the modest:
* * * *
Yet hearing, greater does she weep, that she must onwards go.
Cease thy tears. For thee there is no peril, Aurunculeia, that any woman
more beauteous from Ocean springing shall ever see the light of day.
Thou art like the hyacinthine flower, wont to stand aloft 'midst varied
riches of its lordling's garden. But thou delayest, day slips by: advance,
new mated one.
Advance, new mated, now in sight, and listen to our speech. Note how the
torch-flakes shake their glittering tresses: advance, new mated one.
Nor given to ill adulteries, nor seeking lawless shames, shall thy husband
ever wish to lie away from thy soft breasts,
But as the lithe vine amongst neighbouring trees doth cling, so shall he be
enclasped in thine encircled arms. But day slips by: advance, new mated
one.
O nuptial couch * * * * with feet of ivory white.
What joys are coming to thy lord, in gloom o' night, in noon of day. Let
him rejoice! but day slips by: advance, new mated one.
High raise, O boys, the torches: I see the gleaming veil approach. Come,
chant in cadence, "O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus."
Nor longer silent is lewd Fescinnine jest, nor to the boys the nuts deny,
ingle, hearing thy master's love has flown.
Give nuts to the boys, O listless ingle; enough of days thou hast played
with nuts: now 'tis meet to serve Talassius. O ingle, give the nuts!
The country lasses slighted were by thee, O ingle, till to-day: now the
bride's tiresman shaves thy face. Wretched, wretched ingle, give the nuts.
They say that from thy hairless ingles, O sweet-scented bridegroom, thou
canst scarce abstain: but abstain thou! O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen
Hymenaeus.
We know that these delights were known to thee only when lawful: but to the
wedded these same no more are lawful. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen
Hymenaeus!
Thou also, bride, what thy husband seekest beware of denying, lest he go
elsewhere in its search. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Look, thy husband's home is thine, potent and goodly, and shall be thine
for ever more. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Until with trembling movement thine hoary brow nods ever to everything. O
Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Lift o'er the threshold with good omen thy glistening feet, and go through
the polished gates. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Look! thy lord within, lying on Tyrian couch, all-expectant waits for thee.
O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Not less than in thine, in his breast burns an inmost flame, but more
deeply inward. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Unloose the damsel's slender arm, O purple-bordered youth: now let her
approach her husband's couch. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus.
Ye good dames of fair renown to aged spouses, put ye the damsel a-bed. O
Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus.
Now thou mayst come, O bridegroom: thy wife is in the bridal-bed, with face
brightly blushing as white parthenice 'midst ruddy poppies.
But, O bridegroom (so help me the heaven-dwellers) in no way less beautiful
art thou, nor doth Venus slight thee. But the day slips by: on! nor more
delay.
Nor long hast thou delayed, thou comest now. May kindly Venus help thee,
since what thou dost desire thou takest publicly, and dost not conceal true
love.
Of Afric's sands and glittering stars the number first let him tell, who
wishes to keep count of your many-thousand sports.
Sport as ye like, and speedily give heirs. It does not become so old a name
to be sans heirs, but for similar stock always to be generated.
A little Torquatus I wish, from his mother's bosom reaching out his dainty
hands, and smiling sweetly at his father with lips apart.
May he be like his sire Manlius, and easily acknowledged by every stranger,
and by his face point out his mother's faithfulness.
May such praise confirm his birth from true mother, such fame unique as
rests with Telemachus from best of mothers, Penelope.
Close ye the doors, virgins: enough we've sported. But, fair bride and
groom, live ye well, and diligently fulfil the office of vigorous youth.
LXII.
Vesper adest, iuvenes, consurgite: Vesper Olympo
Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit.
Surgere iam tempus, iam pingues linquere mensas,
Iam veniet virgo, iam dicetur Hymenaeus.
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! 5
Cernitis, innuptae, iuvenes? consurgite contra:
Nimirum Oetaeos ostendit noctifer ignes.
Sic certest; viden ut perniciter exiluere?
Non temere exiluere, canent quod vincere par est.
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! 10
Non facilis nobis, aequales, palma paratast,
Adspicite, innuptae secum ut meditata requirunt.
Non frustra meditantur, habent memorabile quod sit.
Nec mirum, penitus quae tota mente laborent.
Nos alio mentes, alio divisimus aures: 15
Iure igitur vincemur, amat victoria curam.
Quare nunc animos saltem convertite vestros,
Dicere iam incipient, iam respondere decebit.
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!
Hespere, qui caelo fertur crudelior ignis? 20
Qui natam possis conplexu avellere matris,
Conplexu matris retinentem avellere natam
Et iuveni ardenti castam donare puellam.
Quid faciunt hostes capta crudelius urbe?
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! 25
Hespere, qui caelo lucet iocundior ignis?
Qui desponsa tua firmes conubia flamma,
Quae pepigere viri, pepigerunt ante parentes
Nec iunxere prius quam se tuus extulit ardor.
Quid datur a divis felici optatius hora? 30
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!
* * * *
Hesperus e nobis, aequales, abstulit unam
* * * *
_Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee_!
* * * *
Namque tuo adventu vigilat custodia semper.
Nocte latent fures, quos idem saepe revertens,
Hespere, mutato conprendis nomine Eous. 35
At libet innuptis ficto te carpere questu.
Quid tum, si carpunt, tacita quem mente requirunt?
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!
Vt flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo convolsus aratro, 40
Quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber
* * * *
Multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae:
Idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae:
Sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est; 45
Cum castum amisit polluto corpore florem,
Nec pueris iocunda manet, nec cara puellis.
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!
Vt vidua in nudo vitis quae nascitur arvo
Numquam se extollit, numquam mitem educat uvam, 50
Sed tenerum prono deflectens pondere corpus
Iam iam contingit summum radice flagellum;
Hanc nulli agricolae, nulli coluere bubulci:
At si forte eademst ulmo coniuncta marito,
Multi illam agricolae, multi coluere bubulci: 55
Sic virgo dum intacta manet, dum inculta senescit;
Cum par conubium maturo tempore adeptast,
Cara viro magis et minus est invisa parenti.
_Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee_! 58b
At tu ne pugna cum tali coniuge virgo.
Non aequomst pugnare, pater cui tradidit ipse, 60
Ipse pater cum matre, quibus parere necessest.
Virginitas non tota tuast, ex parte parentumst,
Tertia pars patrist, pars est data tertia matri,
Tertia sola tuast: noli pugnare duobus,
Qui genero sua iura simul cum dote dederunt. 65
Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!
LXII.
NUPTIAL SONG BY YOUTH AND DAMSELS.
(Epithalamium.)
_Youths._
Vesper is here, O youths, rise all; for Vesper Olympus
Scales and in fine enfires what lights so long were expected!
Time 'tis now to arise, now leave we tables rich laden,
Now shall the Virgin come; now chaunt we the Hymenæus.
Hymen O Hymenæus: Hymen here, O Hymenæus! 5
_Damsels._
View ye the Youths, O Maids unwed? Then rise to withstand them:
Doubtless the night-fraught Star displays his splendour Oetéän.
Sooth 'tis so; d'ye sight how speedily sprang they to warfare?
Nor for a naught up-sprang: they'll sing what need we to conquer.
Hymen O Hymenæus: Hymen here, O Hymenæus! 10
_Youths._
Nowise easy the palm for us (Companions!) be proffer'd,
Lo! now the maidens muse and meditate matter of forethought
Nor meditate they in vain; they muse a humorous something.
Yet naught wonder it is, their sprites be wholly in labour.
We bear divided thought one way and hearing in other: 15
Vanquish't by right we must be, since Victory loveth the heedful.
Therefore at least d'ye turn your minds the task to consider,
Soon shall begin their say whose countersay shall befit you.
Hymen O Hymenæus: Hymen here, O Hymenæus!
_Damsels._
Hesperus! say what flame more cruel in Heaven be fanned? 20
Thou who the girl perforce canst tear from a mother's embraces,
Tear from a parent's clasp her child despite of her clinging
And upon love-hot youth bestowest her chastest of maidenhoods!
What shall the foeman deal more cruel to city becaptured?
Hymen O Hymenæus, Hymen here, O Hymenæus! 25
_Youths._
Hesperus! say what flame more gladsome in Heavens be shining?
Thou whose light makes sure long-pledged connubial promise
Plighted erewhile by men and erstwhile plighted by parents.
Yet to be ne'er fulfilled before thy fire's ardours have risen!
What better boon can the gods bestow than hour so desirèd? 30
Hymen O Hymenæus, Hymen here, O Hymenæus!
_Damsels._
* * * *
Hesperus! one of ourselves (Companions!) carried elsewhither
* * * *
_Hymen O Hymenæus, Hymen here, O Hymenæus!_
_Youths._
* * * *
For at thy coming in sight a guard is constantly watching.
Hidden o'nights lurk thieves and these as oft as returnest,
Hesper! thou seizest them with title changed to Eöus. 35
Pleases the bevy unwed with feigned complaints to accuse thee.
What if assail they whom their souls in secrecy cherish?
Hymen O Hymenæus, Hymen here, O Hymenæus!
_Damsels._
E'en as a flow'ret born secluded in garden enclosèd,
Unto the flock unknown and ne'er uptorn by the ploughshare, 40
Soothed by the zephyrs and strengthened by suns and nourish't by showers
* * * *
Loves her many a youth and longs for her many a maiden:
Yet from her lissome stalk when cropt that flower deflowered,
Loves her never a youth nor longs for her ever a maiden:
Thus while the virgin be whole, such while she's the dearling of
kinsfolk; 45
Yet no sooner is lost her bloom from body polluted,
Neither to youths she is joy, nor a dearling she to the maidens.
Hymen O Hymenæus, Hymen here, O Hymenæus!
_Youths_.
E'en as an unmated vine which born in field of the barest
Never upraises head nor breeds the mellowy grape-bunch, 50
But under weight prone-bowed that tender body a-bending
Makes she her root anon to touch her topmost of tendrils;
Tends her never a hind nor tends her ever a herdsman:
Yet if haply conjoinèd the same with elm as a husband,
Tends her many a hind and tends her many a herdsman: 55
Thus is the maid when whole, uncultured waxes she aged;
But whenas union meet she wins her at ripest of seasons,
More to her spouse she is dear and less she's irk to her parents.
_Hymen O Hymenæus, Hymen here, O Hymenæus!_
_Youths and Damsels_.
But do thou cease to resist (O Maid!) such bridegroom opposing,
Right it is not to resist whereto consigned thee a father,
Father and mother of thee unto whom obedience is owing.
Not is that maidenhood all thine own, but partly thy parents!
Owneth thy sire one third, one third is right of thy mother,
Only the third is thine: stint thee to strive with the others,
Who to the stranger son have yielded their dues with a dower! 65
Hymen O Hymenæus: Hymen here, O Hymenæus!
YOUTHS.
Vesper is here, arise ye youths: Vesper at last has just borne aloft in the
heavens his long-looked-for light. Now 'tis time to arise, now to leave the
fattened tables, now comes the virgin, now is said the Hymenaeus. Hymen O
Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
_Maidens_.
Discern ye, O unwedded girls, the youths? Arise in response: forsooth the
Star of Eve displays its Oetaean fires. Thus 'tis; see how fleetly have
they leapt forth? Nor without intent have they leapt forth, they will sing
what 'tis meet we surpass. Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
_Youths_.
Nor easily is for us, O comrades, the palm prepared; see ye how they talk
together in deep thought. Nor in vain do they muse, they have what may be
worthy of memory. Nor be wonder: for inwardly toil they with whole of their
minds. Our minds one way, our ears another, we have divided: wherefore by
right are we conquered, for victory loveth solicitude. So now your minds at
the least turn ye hither, now their chant they begin, anon ye will have to
respond. Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
_Maidens_.
Hesperus! what crueler light is borne aloft in the heavens? Thou who canst
pluck the maid from her mother's enfolding, pluck from her mother's
enfolding the firm-clinging maid, and canst give the chaste girl to the
burning youngster. What more cruel could victors in vanquished city
contrive? Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
_Youths_.
Hesperus! what more jocund light is borne aloft in the heavens? Thou who
dost confirm with thy flame the marriage betrothals which the men had
pledged, the parents had pledged of aforetime, nor may they be joined in
completion before thy flame is borne aloft. What can the gods give more
gladsome than that happy hour? Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
_Maidens_.
* * * * Hesperus from us, O comrades, has stolen one away * * * * _Hymen O
Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!_
_Youths_.
* * * * For at thy advent a guard always keeps watch. Thieves lie in wait
by night, whom often on thy return, O Hesperus, thou hap'st upon, when with
thy changed name Eous. Yet it doth please the unwedded girls to carp at
thee with plaints fictitious. But what if they carp at that which in
close-shut mind they long for? Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
_Maidens_.
As grows the hidden flower in garden closed, to kine unknown, uprooted by
no ploughshare, whilst the winds caress it, the sun makes it sturdy, and
the shower gives it growth * * * * many a boy and many a girl longs for it:
this same when pluckt, deflowered from slender stalklet, never a boy and
never a girl doth long for it: so the virgin, while she stays untouched, so
long is she dear to her folk; when she hath lost her chaste flower from her
body profaned, nor to the boys stays she beauteous, nor is she dear to the
girls. Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
_Youths_.
As the widowed vine which grows in naked field ne'er uplifts itself, ne'er
ripens a mellow grape, but bending prone 'neath the weight of its tender
body now and again its highmost bough touches with its root; this no
husbandmen, no herdsmen will foster: but if this same chance to be joined
with marital elm, it many husbandmen, many herdsmen will foster: so the
virgin, whilst she stays untouched, so long does she age, unfostered; but
when fitting union she obtain in meet time, dearer is she to her lord and
less of a trouble to parent. _Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!_
_Youths and Maidens_.
But struggle not 'gainst such a mate, O virgin. 'Tis improper to struggle,
thou whose father hath handed thee o'er, that father together with thy
mother to whom obedience is needed. Thy maidenhead is not wholly thine, in
part 'tis thy parents': a third part is thy father's, a third part is given
to thy mother, a third alone is thine: be unwilling to struggle against
two, who to their son-in-law their rights together with dowry have given.
Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen hither O Hymenaeus!
LXIII.
Super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria
Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit
Adiitque opaca, silvis redimita loca deae,
Stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, vagus animis,
Devolsit ilei acuto sibi pondera silice. 5
Itaque ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine viro,
Etiam recente terrae sola sanguine maculans
Niveis citata cepit manibus leve typanum,
Typanum, tuom Cybebe, tua, mater, initia,
Quatiensque terga taurei teneris cava digitis 10
Canere haec suis adortast tremebunda comitibus.
'Agite ite ad alta, Gallae, Cybeles nemora simul,
Simul ite, Dindymenae dominae vaga pecora,
Aliena quae petentes velut exules loca
Sectam meam executae duce me mihi comites 15
Rabidum salum tulistis truculentaque pelage
Et corpus evirastis Veneris nimio odio,
Hilarate erae citatis erroribus animum.
Mora tarda mente cedat: simul ite, sequimini
Phrygiam ad domum Cybebes, Phrygia ad nemora deae, 20
Vbi cymbalum sonat vox, ubi tympana reboant,
Tibicen ubi canit Phryx curvo grave calamo,
Vbi capita Maenades vi iaciunt ederigerae,
Vbi sacra sancta acutis ululatibus agitant,
Vbi suevit illa divae volitare vaga cohors: 25
Quo nos decet citatis celerare tripudiis.'
Simul haec comitibus Attis cecinit notha mulier,
Thiasus repente linguis trepidantibus ululat,
Leve tympanum remugit, cava cymbala recrepant,
Viridem citus adit Idam properante pede chorus. 30
Furibunda simul anhelans vaga vadit, animam agens,
Comitata tympano Attis per opaca nemora dux,
Veluti iuvenca vitans onus indomita iugi:
Rapidae ducem sequuntur Gallae properipedem.
Itaque ut domum Cybebes tetigere lassulae, 35
Nimio e labore somnum capiunt sine Cerere.
Piger his labante langore oculos sopor operit:
Abit in quiete molli rabidus furor animi.
Sed ubi oris aurei Sol radiantibus oculis
Lustravit aethera album, sola dura, mare ferum, 40
Pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus,
Ibi Somnus excitam Attin fugiens citus abiit:
Trepidante eum recepit dea Pasithea sinu.
Ita de quiete molli rapida sine rabie
Simul ipsa pectore Attis sua facta recoluit, 45
Liquidaque mente vidit sine queis ubique foret,
Animo aestuante rusum reditum ad vada tetulit.
Ibi maria vasta visens lacrimantibus oculis,
Patriam allocuta maestast ita voce miseriter.
'Patria o mei creatrix, patria o mea genetrix, 50
Ego quam miser relinquens, dominos ut erifugae
Famuli solent, ad Idae tetuli nemora pedem,
Vt aput nivem et ferarum gelida stabula forem
Et earum operta adirem furibunda latibula?
Vbinam aut quibus locis te positam, patria, reor? 55
Cupit ipsa pupula ad te sibi dirigere aciem,
Rabie fera carens dum breve tempus animus est.
Egone a mea remota haec ferar in nemora domo?
Patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus abero?
Abero foro, palaestra, stadio et guminasiis? 60
Miser a miser, querendumst etiam atque etiam, anime.
Quod enim genus figuraest, ego non quod habuerim?
Ego mulier, ego adolescens, ego ephebus, ego puer,
Ego guminasi fui flos, ego eram decus olei:
Mihi ianuae frequentes, mihi limina tepida, 65
Mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat,
Linquendum ubi esset orto mihi sole cubiculum.
Ego nunc deum ministra et Cybeles famula ferar?
Ego Maenas, ego mei pars, ego vir sterilis ero?
Ego viridis algida Idae nive amicta loca colam? 70
Ego vitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus,
Vbi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus?
Iam iam dolet quod egi, iam iamque paenitet.'
Roseis ut huic labellis sonitus celer abiit,
Geminas deorum ad aures nova nuntia referens, 75
Ibi iuncta iuga resolvens Cybele leonibus
Laevumque pecoris hostem stimulans ita loquitur.
'Agedum' inquit 'age ferox i, fac ut hunc furor _agitet_,
Fac uti furoris ictu reditum in nemora ferat,
Mea libere nimis qui fugere imperia cupit. 80
Age caede terga cauda, tua verbera patere,
Fac cuncta mugienti fremitu loca retonent,
Rutilam ferox torosa cervice quate iubam.'
Ait haec minax Cybebe religatque iuga manu.
Ferus ipse sese adhortans rapidum incitat animo, 85
Vadit, fremit, refringit virgulta pede vago.
At ubi umida albicantis loca litoris adiit,
Teneramque vidit Attin prope marmora pelagi,
Facit impetum: illa demens fugit in nemora fera:
Ibi semper omne vitae spatium famula fuit. 90
Dea magna, dea Cybebe, Didymei dea domina,
Procul a mea tuos sit furor omnis, era, domo:
Alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos.
LXIII.
THE ADVENTURES OF ATYS.
O'er high deep seas in speedy ship his voyage Atys sped
Until he trod the Phrygian grove with hurried eager tread
And as the gloomy tree-shorn stead, the she-god's home, he sought
There sorely stung with fiery ire and madman's vaguing thought,
Share he with sharpened flint the freight wherewith his form was fraught.
5
Then as the she-he sensèd limbs were void of manly strain
And sighted freshly shed a-ground spot of ensanguined stain,
Snatched she the timbrel's legier load with hands as snowdrops white,
Thy timbrel, Mother Cybebé, the firstings of thy rite,
And as her tender finger-tips on bull-back hollow rang 10
She rose a-grieving and her song to listening comrades sang.
"Up Gallæ, hie together, haste for Cybebe's deep grove,
Hie to the Dindyménean dame, ye flocks that love to rove;
The which affecting stranger steads as bound in exile's brunt
My sect pursuing led by me have nerved you to confront 15
The raging surge of salty sea and ocean's tyrant hand
As your hate of Venus' hest your manly forms unmann'd,
Gladden your souls, ye mistresses, with sense of error bann'd.
Drive from your spirits dull delay, together follow ye
To hold of Phrygian goddess, home of Phrygian Cybebe, 20
Where loud the cymbal's voice resounds with timbrel-echoes blending,
And where the Phrygian piper drones grave bass from reed a-bending,
Where toss their ivy-circled heads with might the Mænades
Where ply mid shrilly lullilooes the holiest mysteries,
Where to fly here and there be wont the she-god's vaguing train, 25
Thither behoves us lead the dance in quick-step hasty strain."
Soon as had Atys (bastard-she) this lay to comrades sung
The Chorus sudden lulliloos with quivering, quavering tongue,
Again the nimble timbrel groans, the scooped-out cymbals clash,
And up green Ida flits the Choir, with footsteps hurrying rash. 30
Then Atys frantic, panting, raves, a-wandering, lost, insane,
And leads with timbrel hent and treads the shades where shadows rain,
Like heifer spurning load of yoke in yet unbroken pride;
And the swift Gallæ follow fain their first and fleetfoot guide.
But when the home of Cybebe they make with toil out-worn 35
O'er much, they lay them down to sleep and gifts of Ceres scorn;
Till heavy slumbers seal their eyelids langourous, drooping lowly,
And raving phrenzy flies each brain departing softly, slowly.
But when Dan Sol with radiant eyes that fire his face of gold
Surveyed white aether and solid soil and waters uncontrol'd, 40
And chased with steeds sonorous-hooved the shades of lingering night,
Then sleep from waking Atys fled fleeting with sudden flight,
By Nymph Pásithae welcomèd to palpitating breast.
Thus when his phrenzy raging rash was soothed to gentlest rest,
Atys revolved deeds lately done, as thought from breast unfolding, 45
And what he'd lost and what he was with lucid sprite beholding,
To shallows led by surging soul again the way 'gan take.
There casting glance of weeping eyes where vasty billows brake,
Sad-voiced in pitifullest lay his native land bespake.
"Country of me, Creatress mine, O born to thee and bred, 50
By hapless me abandoned as by thrall from lordling fled,
When me to Ida's groves and glades these vaguing footsteps bore
To tarry 'mid the snows and where lurk beasts in antres frore
And seek the deeply hidden lairs where furious ferals meet!
Where, Country! whither placed must I now hold thy site and seat? 55
Lief would these balls of eyes direct to thee their line of sight,
Which for a while, a little while, would free me from despite.
Must I for ever roam these groves from house and home afar?
Of country, parents, kith and kin (life's boon) myself debar?
Fly Forum, fly Palestra, fly the Stadium, the Gymnase? 60
Wretch, ah poor wretch, I'm doomed (my soul!) to mourn throughout my
days,
For what of form or figure is, which I failed to enjoy?
I full-grown man, I blooming youth, I stripling, I a boy,
I of Gymnasium erst the bloom, I too of oil the pride:
Warm was my threshold, ever stood my gateways opening wide, 65
My house was ever garlanded and hung with flowery freight,
And couch to quit with rising sun, has ever been my fate:
Now must I Cybebe's she-slave, priestess of gods, be hight?
I Mænad I, mere bit of self, I neutral barren wight?
I spend my life-tide couch't beneath high-towering Phrygian peaks? 70
I dwell on Ida's verdant slopes mottled with snowy streaks,
Where homes the forest-haunting doe, where roams the wildling boar?
Now, now I rue my deed foredone, now, now it irks me sore!"
Whenas from out those roseate lips these accents rapid flew,
Bore them to ears divine consigned a Nuncio true and new; 75
Then Cybebe her lions twain disjoining from their yoke
The left-hand enemy of the herds a-goading thus bespoke:--
"Up feral fell! up, hie with him, see rage his footsteps urge,
See that his fury smite him till he seek the forest verge,
He who with over-freedom fain would fly mine empery. 80
Go, slash thy flank with lashing tail and sense the strokes of thee,
Make the whole mountain to thy roar sound and resound again,
And fiercely toss thy brawny neck that bears the tawny mane!"
So quoth an-angered Cybebe, and yoke with hand untied:
The feral rose in fiery wrath and self-inciting hied, 85
A-charging, roaring through the brake with breaking paws he tore.
But when he reached the humid sands where surges cream the shore,
Spying soft Atys lingering near the marbled pave of sea
He springs: the terror-madded wretch back to the wood doth flee,
Where for the remnant of her days a bondmaid's life led she. 90
Great Goddess, Goddess Cybebe, Dindymus dame divine,
Far from my house and home thy wrath and wrack, dread mistress mine:
Goad others on with Fury's goad, others to Ire consign!
Over the vast main borne by swift-sailing ship, Attis, as with hasty
hurried foot he reached the Phrygian wood and gained the tree-girt gloomy
sanctuary of the Goddess, there roused by rabid rage and mind astray, with
sharp-edged flint downwards wards dashed his burden of virility. Then as he
felt his limbs were left without their manhood, and the fresh-spilt blood
staining the soil, with bloodless hand she hastily hent a tambour light to
hold, taborine thine, O Cybebe, thine initiate rite, and with feeble
fingers beating the hollowed bullock's back, she rose up quivering thus to
chant to her companions.
"Haste ye together, she-priests, to Cybebe's dense woods, together haste,
ye vagrant herd of the dame Dindymene, ye who inclining towards strange
places as exiles, following in my footsteps, led by me, comrades, ye who
have faced the ravening sea and truculent main, and have castrated your
bodies in your utmost hate of Venus, make glad our mistress speedily with
your minds' mad wanderings. Let dull delay depart from your thoughts,
together haste ye, follow to the Phrygian home of Cybebe, to the Phrygian
woods of the Goddess, where sounds the cymbal's voice, where the tambour
resounds, where the Phrygian flautist pipes deep notes on the curved reed,
where the ivy-clad Maenades furiously toss their heads, where they enact
their sacred orgies with shrill-sounding ululations, where that wandering
band of the Goddess is wont to flit about: thither 'tis meet to hasten with
hurried mystic dance."
When Attis, spurious woman, had thus chanted to her comity, the chorus
straightway shrills with trembling tongues, the light tambour booms, the
concave cymbals clang, and the troop swiftly hastes with rapid feet to
verdurous Ida. Then raging wildly, breathless, wandering, with brain
distraught, hurrieth Attis with her tambour, their leader through dense
woods, like an untamed heifer shunning the burden of the yoke: and the
swift Gallae press behind their speedy-footed leader. So when the home of
Cybebe they reach, wearied out with excess of toil and lack of food they
fall in slumber. Sluggish sleep shrouds their eyes drooping with faintness,
and raging fury leaves their minds to quiet ease.
But when the sun with radiant eyes from face of gold glanced o'er the white
heavens, the firm soil, and the savage sea, and drave away the glooms of
night with his brisk and clamorous team, then sleep fast-flying quickly
sped away from wakening Attis, and goddess Pasithea received Somnus in her
panting bosom. Then when from quiet rest torn, her delirium over, Attis at
once recalled to mind her deed, and with lucid thought saw what she had
lost, and where she stood, with heaving heart she backwards traced her
steps to the landing-place. There, gazing o'er the vast main with
tear-filled eyes, with saddened voice in tristful soliloquy thus did she
lament her land:
"Mother-land, O my creatress, mother-land, O my begetter, which full sadly
I'm forsaking, as runaway serfs are wont from their lords, to the woods of
Ida I have hasted on foot, to stay 'mongst snow and icy dens of ferals, and
to wander through the hidden lurking-places of ferocious beasts. Where, or
in what part, O mother-land, may I imagine that thou art? My very eyeball
craves to fix its glance towards thee, whilst for a brief space my mind is
freed from wild ravings. And must I wander o'er these woods far from mine
home? From country, goods, friends, and parents, must I be parted? Leave
the forum, the palaestra, the race-course, and gymnasium? Wretched,
wretched soul, 'tis thine to grieve for ever and for aye. For whatso shape
is there, whose kind I have not worn? I (now a woman), I a man, a
stripling, and a lad; I was the gymnasium's flower, I was the pride of the
oiled wrestlers: my gates, my friendly threshold, were crowded, my home was
decked with floral coronals, when I was wont to leave my couch at sunrise.
Now shall I live a ministrant of gods and slave to Cybebe? I a Maenad, I a
part of me, I a sterile trunk! Must I range o'er the snow-clad spots of
verdurous Ida, and wear out my life 'neath lofty Phrygian peaks, where stay
the sylvan-seeking stag and woodland-wandering boar? Now, now, I grieve the
deed I've done; now, now, do I repent!"
As the swift sound left those rosy lips, borne by new messenger to gods'
twinned ears, Cybebe, unloosing her lions from their joined yoke, and
goading the left-hand foe of the herd, thus doth speak: "Come," she says,
"to work, thou fierce one, cause a madness urge him on, let a fury prick
him onwards till he return through our woods, he who over-rashly seeks to
fly from my empire. On! thrash thy flanks with thy tail, endure thy
strokes; make the whole place re-echo with roar of thy bellowings; wildly
toss thy tawny mane about thy nervous neck." Thus ireful Cybebe spoke and
loosed the yoke with her hand. The monster, self-exciting, to rapid wrath
his heart doth spur, he rushes, he roars, he bursts through the brake with
heedless tread. But when he gained the humid verge of the foam-flecked
shore, and spied the womanish Attis near the opal sea, he made a bound: the
witless wretch fled into the wild wold: there throughout the space of her
whole life a bondsmaid did she stay. Great Goddess, Goddess Cybebe, Goddess
Dame of Dindymus, far from my home may all thine anger be, O mistress: urge
others to such actions, to madness others hound.
LXIIII.
Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus
Dicuntur liquidas Neptuni nasse per undas
Phasidos ad fluctus et fines Aeetaeos,
Cum lecti iuvenes, Argivae robora pubis,
Auratam optantes Colchis avertere pellem 5
Ausi sunt vada salsa cita decurrere puppi,
Caerula verrentes abiegnis aequora palmis.
Diva quibus retinens in summis urbibus arces
Ipsa levi fecit volitantem flamine currum,
Pinea coniungens inflexae texta carinae. 10
Illa rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten.
Quae simulac rostro ventosum proscidit aequor,
Tortaque remigio spumis incanduit unda,
Emersere freti canenti e gurgite vultus
Aequoreae monstrum Nereides admirantes. 15
Atque illic alma viderunt luce marinas
Mortales oculi nudato corpore Nymphas
Nutricum tenus extantes e gurgite cano.
Tum Thetidis Peleus incensus fertur amore,
Tum Thetis humanos non despexit hymenaeos, 20
Tum Thetidi pater ipse iugandum Pelea sanxit.
O nimis optato saeclorum tempore nati
Heroes, salvete, deum genus, o bona matrum
Progenies, salvete iterum _placidique favete_.
Vos ego saepe meo, vos carmine conpellabo,
Teque adeo eximie taedis felicibus aucte 25
Thessaliae columen Peleu, cui Iuppiter ipse,
Ipse suos divom genitor concessit amores.
Tene Thetis tenuit pulch
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