Carmina

Catullus

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.

  1. Whether extremest Indian shore he brave,
  2. Strands where far-resounding billow rends
  3. The shattered wave,
  4. Or 'mid Hyrcanians dwell he, Arabs soft and wild,
  5. Sacis and Parthians of the arrow fain,
  6. Or where the Seven-mouth'd Nilus mud-defiled
  7. Tinges the Main,
  8. Or climb he lofty Alpine Crest and note
  9. Works monumental, Caesar's grandeur telling,
  10. Rhine Gallic, horrid Ocean and remote
  11. Britons low-dwelling;
  12. All these (whatever shall the will design
  13. Of Heaven-homed Gods) Oh ye prepared to tempt;
  14. Announce your briefest to that damsel mine
  15. In words unkempt :—
  16. Live she and love she wenchers several,
  17. Embrace three hundred wi' the like requitals,
  18. None truly loving and withal of all
  19. Bursting the vitals:
  20. My love regard she not, my love of yore,
  21. Which fell through fault of her, as falls the fair
  22. Last meadow-floret whenas passed it o'er
  23. touch of the share.
  1. Marrúcinus Asinius! ill thou usest
  2. That hand sinistral in thy wit and wine
  3. Filching the napkins of more heedless hosts.
  4. Dost find this funny? Fool it passeth thee
  5. How 'tis a sordid deed, a sorry jest.
  6. Dost misbelieve me? Trust to Pollio,
  7. Thy brother, ready to compound such thefts
  8. E'en at a talent's cost; for he's a youth
  9. In speech past master and in fair pleasantries.
  10. Of hendecasyllabics hundreds three
  11. Therefore expect thou, or return forthright
  12. Linens whose loss affects me not for worth
  13. But as mementoes of a comrade mine.
  14. For napkins Saetaban from Ebro-land
  15. Fabúllus ent me a free giftie given
  16. Also Veránius: these perforce I love
  17. E'en as my Veraniólus and Fabúllus.