Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. For that thy labours ne'er to death be doom'd.
  2. Great Gods! What horrid booklet damnable
  3. Unto thine own Catullus thou (perdie!)
  4. Did send, that ever day by day die he
  5. In Saturnalia, first of festivals.
  6. No! No! thus shall't not pass wi' thee, sweet wag,
  7. For I at dawning day will scour the booths
  8. Of bibliopoles, Aquinii, Caesii and
  9. Suffenus, gather all their poison-trash
  10. And with such torments pay thee for thy pains.
  11. Now for the present hence, adieu! begone
  12. Thither, whence came ye, brought by luckless feet,
  13. Pests of the Century, ye pernicious Poets.
  1. An of my trifles peradventure chance
  2. You to be readers, and the hands of you
  3. Without a shudder unto us be offer'd
  4. ---
  1. To thee I trust my loves and me,
  2. (Aurelius!) craving modesty.
  3. That (if in mind didst ever long
  4. To win aught chaste unknowing wrong)
  5. Then guard my boy in purest way.
  6. From folk I say not: naught affray
  7. The crowds wont here and there to run
  8. Through street-squares, busied every one;
  9. But thee I dread nor less thy penis
  10. Fair or foul, younglings' foe I ween is!
  11. Wag it as wish thou, at its will,
  12. When out of doors its hope fulfil;
  13. Him bar I, modestly, methinks.
  14. But should ill-mind or lust's high jinks
  15. Thee (Sinner!), drive to sin so dread,
  16. That durst ensnare our dearling's head,
  17. Ah! woe's thee (wretch!) and evil fate,
  18. Mullet and radish shall pierce and grate,
  19. When feet-bound, haled through yawning gate.
  1. I'll . . . you twain and . . .
  2. Pathic Aurelius! Fúrius, libertines!
  3. Who durst determine from my versicles
  4. Which seem o'er softy, that I'm scant of shame.
  5. For pious poet it behoves be chaste
  6. Himself; no chastity his verses need;
  7. Nay, gain they finally more salt of wit
  8. When over softy and of scanty shame,
  9. Apt for exciting somewhat prurient,
  10. In boys, I say not, but in bearded men
  11. Who fail of movements in their hardened loins.
  12. Ye who so many thousand kisses sung