Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Prone falls, shattering wide what lies in line of its downfall,—
  2. Thus was that wildling flung by Theseus and vanquisht of body,
  3. Vainly tossing its horns and goring the wind to no purpose.
  4. Thence with abounding praise returned he, guiding his footsteps,
  5. While a fine drawn thread checked steps in wander abounding,
  6. Lest when issuing forth of the winding maze labyrinthine
  7. Baffled become his track by inobservable error.
  8. But for what cause should I, from early subject digressing,
  9. Tell of the daughter who the face of her sire unseeing,
  10. Eke her sister's embrace nor less her mother's endearments,
  11. Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
  12. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  13. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  14. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  15. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  16. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  17. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  18. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
  19. Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
  20. Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
  21. And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
  22. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  23. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  24. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
  25. Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
  26. Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
  27. (Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
  28. Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
  29. Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,
  30. That to have pity on me vouchsafed your pitiless bosom?
  31. Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy
  32. Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
  33. But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.