Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- The boor, and plucking forth with bended arm
- Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.
- 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
- 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
- Are thirst and famine to my dearling fated.
- Cease thou so doing while as modest rated,
- Lest to thy will thou win—but . . . .
- 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,