Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Lief would these balls of eyes direct to thee their line of sight,
  2. Which for a while, a little while, would free me from despite.
  3. Must I for ever roam these groves from house and home afar?
  4. Of country, parents, kith and kin (life's boon) myself debar?
  5. Fly Forum, fly Palestra, fly the Stadium, the Gymnase?
  6. Wretch, ah poor wretch, I'm doomed (my soul!) to mourn throughout my days,
  7. For what of form or figure is, which I failed to enjoy?
  8. I full-grown man, I blooming youth, I stripling, I a boy,
  9. I of Gymnasium erst the bloom, I too of oil the pride:
  10. Warm was my threshold, ever stood my gateways opening wide,
  11. My house was ever garlanded and hung with flowery freight,
  12. And couch to quit with rising sun, has ever been my fate:
  13. Now must I Cybele's she-slave, priestess of gods, be hight?
  14. I Maenad I, mere bit of self, I neutral barren wight?
  15. I spend my life-tide couch't beneath high-towering Phrygian peaks?
  16. I dwell on Ida's verdant slopes mottled with snowy streaks,
  17. Where homes the forest-haunting doe, where roams the wildling boar?
  18. Now, now I rue my deed foredone, now, now it irks me sore!"
  19. Whenas from out those roseate lips these accents rapid flew,
  20. Bore them to ears divine consigned a Nuncio true and new;