Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. So thou, and pleasant happy life
  2. Lead wi' thy parents wooden wife.
  3. Nor be this marvel: hale are all,
  4. Well ye digest; no fears appal
  5. For household-arsons, heavy ruin,
  6. Plunderings impious, poison-brewin'
  7. Or other parlous case forlorn.
  8. Your frames are hard and dried like horn,
  9. Or if more arid aught ye know
  10. By suns and frosts and hunger-throe.
  11. Then why not happy as thou'rt hale?
  12. Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, and fail
  13. Phlegm and foul snivel from the nose.
  14. Add cleanness that aye cleanlier shows
  15. A bum than salt-pot cleanlier,
  16. Nor ten times cack'st in total year,
  17. And harder 'tis than pebble or bean
  18. Which rubbed in hand or crumbled, e'en
  19. On finger ne'er shall make unclean.
  20. Such blessings (Furius !) such a prize
  21. Never belittle nor despise;
  22. Hundred sesterces seek no more
  23. With wonted prayer—enow's thy store!
  1. O of Juventian youths the flowret fair
  2. Not of these only, but of all that were
  3. Or shall be, coming in the coming years,
  4. Better waste Midas' wealth (to me appears)
  5. On him that owns nor slave nor money-chest
  6. Than thou shouldst suffer by his love possest.
  7. "What! is he vile or not fair?" "Yes!" I attest,
  8. "Yet owns this man so comely neither slaves nor chest
  9. My words disdain thou or accept at best
  10. Yet neither slave he owns nor money-chest."
  1. Thou bardache Thallus! more than Coney's robe
  2. Soft, or goose-marrow or ear's lowmost lobe,
  3. Or Age's languid yard and cobweb'd part,
  4. Same Thallus greedier than the gale thou art,
  5. When the Kite-goddess shows thee Gulls agape,
  6. Return my muffler thou hast dared to rape,
  7. Saetaban napkins, tablets of Thynos, all
  8. Which (Fool!) ancestral heirlooms thou didst call.
  9. These now unglueing from thy claws restore,
  10. Lest thy soft hands, and floss-like flanklets score
  11. The burning scourges, basely signed and lined,
  12. And thou unwonted toss like wee barque tyned
  13. 'Mid vasty Ocean vexed by madding wind!
  1. Furius! our Villa never Austral force
  2. B roke, neither set thereon Favonius' course,
  3. Nor savage Boreas, nor Epeliot's strain,
  4. But fifteen thousand crowns and hundreds twain
  5. Wreckt it, —Oh ruinous by-wind, breezy bane!
  1. Thou youngling drawer of Falernian old