Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. A-seeking sumptuous banquetings, bestowed.
  2. For I requesting to be Sestius' guest
  3. Read against claimant Antius a speech,
  4. Full-filled with poisonous pestilential trash.
  5. Hence a grave frigid rheum and frequent cough
  6. Shook me till fled I to thy bosom, where
  7. Repose and nettle-broth healed all my ills.
  8. Wherefore recruited now best thanks I give
  9. To thee for nowise punishing my sins:
  10. Nor do I now object if noisome writs
  11. Of Sestius hear I, but that cold and cough
  12. And rheum may plague, not me, but Sestius' self
  13. Who asks me only his ill writs to read.
  1. To Acmé quoth Septumius who his fere
  2. Held on his bosom-" Acme', mine! next year,
  3. Unless I love thee fondlier than before,
  4. And with each twelve month love thee more and more,
  5. As much as lover's life can slay with yearning,
  6. Alone in Lybia, or Hind's clime a-burning,
  7. Be mine to encounter Lion grisly-eyed!"