Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Dare not denay her, insular Cyclades,
  2. And noble Rhodos and ferocious Thrace,
  3. Propontis too and blustering Pontic bight.
  4. Where she (my Pinnace now) in times before,
  5. Was leafy woodling on Cytórean Chine
  6. For ever loquent lisping with her leaves.
  7. Pontic Amastris! Box-tree-clad Cytórus!
  8. Cognisant were ye, and you weet full well
  9. (So saith my Pinnace) how from earliest age
  10. Upon your highmost-spiring peak she stood,
  11. How in your waters first her sculls were dipt,
  12. And thence thro' many and many an important strait
  13. She bore her owner whether left or right,
  14. Where breezes bade her fare, or Jupiter deigned
  15. At once propitious strike the sail full square;
  16. Nor to the sea-shore gods was aught of vow
  17. By her deemed needful, when from Ocean's bourne
  18. Extreme she voyaged for this limpid lake.
  19. Yet were such things whilome: now she retired
  20. In quiet age devotes herself to thee
  21. (0 twin-born Castor) twain with Castor's twin.
  1. Love we (my Lesbia!) and live we our day,
  2. While all stern sayings crabbed sages say,
  3. At one doit's value let us price and prize!
  4. The Suns can westward sink again to rise
  5. But we, extinguished once our tiny light,
  6. Perforce shall slumber through one lasting night!
  7. Kiss me a thousand times, then hundred more,
  8. Then thousand others, then a new five-score,
  9. Still other thousand other hundred store.
  10. Last when the sums to many thousands grow,
  11. The tale let's trouble till no more we know,
  12. Nor envious wight despiteful shall misween us
  13. Knowing how many kisses have been kissed between us.
  1. Thy Charmer (Flavius!) to Catullus' ear
  2. Were she not manner'd mean and worst in wit
  3. Perforce thou hadst praised nor couldst silence keep.
  4. But some enfevered jade, I wot-not-what,
  5. Some piece thou lovest, blushing this to own.
  6. For, nowise 'customed widower nights to lie
  7. Thou 'rt ever summoned by no silent bed
  8. With flow'r-wreaths fragrant and with Syrian oil,
  9. By mattress, bolsters, here, there, everywhere
  10. Deep-dinted, and by quaking, shaking couch
  11. All crepitation and mobility.
  12. Explain! none whoredoms (no!) shall close my lips.
  13. Why? such outfuttered flank thou ne'er wouldst show
  14. Had not some fulsome work by thee been wrought.