Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Best it befits thee off to keep thy hands.
  2. Thy cross is ready, shaped as artless yard;
  3. "I'm willing, 'faith" (thou say'st) but 'faith here comes
  4. The boor, and plucking forth with bended arm
  5. Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.
  1. Aurelius, father of the famisht crew,
  2. Not sole of starvelings now, but wretches who
  3. Were, are, or shall be in the years to come,
  4. My love, my dearling, fain art thou to strum.
  5. Nor privately; for nigh thou com'st and jestest
  6. And to his side close-sticking all things questest.
  7. 'Tis vain: while lay'st thou snares for me the worst,
  8. By . . . . I will teach thee first.
  9. An food-full thus do thou, my peace I'd keep:
  10. But what (ah me ! ah me !) compels me weep
  11. Are thirst and famine to my dearling fated.
  12. Cease thou so doing while as modest rated,
  13. Lest to thy will thou win—but . . . .
  1. Varus, yon wight Suffenus known to thee
  2. Fairly for wit, free talk, urbanity,
  3. The same who scribbles verse in amplest store—
  4. Methinks he fathers thousands ten or more
  5. Indited not as wont on palimpsest,
  6. But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best
  7. Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead
  8. Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished.
  9. These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane
  10. Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain
  11. Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile.
  12. What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while,
  13. Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets,
  14. He now in dullness, dullest villain beats
  15. Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight