Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Witless surely the wight whose sense is less than of boy-babe
  2. Two-year-old and a-sleep on trembling forearm of father.
  3. He though, wedded to girl in greenest bloom of her youth-tide,
  4. (Bride-wife daintier bred than ever was delicate kidlet,
  5. Worthier diligent watch than grape-bunch blackest and ripest)
  6. Suffers her sport as she please nor rates her even at hair's worth,
  7. Nowise 'stirring himself, but lying log-like as alder
  8. Felled and o'er floating the fosse of safe Ligurian woodsman,
  9. Feeling withal, as though such spouse he never had own'd;
  10. So this marvel o' mine sees naught, and nothing can hear he,
  11. What he himself, an he be or not be, wholly unknowing.
  12. Now would I willingly pitch such wight head first fro' thy bridge,
  13. Better a-sudden t'arouse that numskull's stolid old senses,
  14. Or in the sluggish mud his soul supine to deposit
  15. Even as she-mule casts iron shoe where quagmire is stiffest.
  1. This grove to thee devote I give, Priapus!
  2. Who home be Lampsacus and holt, Priapus!
  3. For thee in cities worship most the shores
  4. Of Hellespont the richest oystery strand.
  1. This place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turfbuilded cottage,