Carmina

Catullus

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

  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
  2. Crown me the goblets with a bitterer wine
  3. As was Postumia's law that rules the feast
  4. Than ebriate grape-stone more inebriate.
  5. But ye fare whither please ye (water-nymphs!)
  6. To wine pernicious, and to sober folk
  7. Migrate ye: mere Thyonian juice be here!
  1. Followers of Piso, empty band