Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. For as an oak that shakes on topmost summit of Taurus
  2. Its boughs, or cone-growing pine from bole bark resin exuding,
  3. Whirlwind of passing might that twists the stems with its storm-blasts,
  4. Uproots, deracinates, forthright its trunk to the farthest,
  5. Prone falls, shattering wide what lies in line of its downfall,—
  6. Thus was that wildling flung by Theseus and vanquisht of body,
  7. Vainly tossing its horns and goring the wind to no purpose.
  8. Thence with abounding praise returned he, guiding his footsteps,
  9. While a fine drawn thread checked steps in wander abounding,
  10. Lest when issuing forth of the winding maze labyrinthine
  11. Baffled become his track by inobservable error.
  12. But for what cause should I, from early subject digressing,
  13. Tell of the daughter who the face of her sire unseeing,
  14. Eke her sister's embrace nor less her mother's endearments,
  15. Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
  16. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  17. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  18. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  19. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  20. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  21. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  22. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
  23. Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
  24. Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
  25. And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
  26. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  27. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  28. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
  29. Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
  30. Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
  31. (Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
  32. Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
  33. Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,