Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
  2. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  3. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  4. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  5. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  6. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  7. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  8. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
  9. Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
  10. Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
  11. And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
  12. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  13. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  14. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
  15. Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
  16. Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
  17. (Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
  18. Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
  19. Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,
  20. That to have pity on me vouchsafed your pitiless bosom?
  21. Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy
  22. Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
  23. But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.
  24. All now empty and vain, by breath of the breezes bescattered!
  25. Now, let woman no more trust her to man when he sweareth,
  26. Ne'er let her hope to find or truth or faith in his pleadings,
  27. Who when lustful thought forelooks to somewhat attaining,
  28. Never an oath they fear, shall spare no promise to promise.
  29. Yet no sooner they sate all lewdness and lecherous fancy,
  30. Nothing remember of words and reck they naught of fore-swearing.
  31. Certes, you did I snatch from midmost whirlpool of ruin
  32. Deadly, and held it cheap loss of a brother to suffer
  33. Rather than fail your need (O false!) at hour the supremest.
  34. Therefore my limbs are doomed to be torn of birds, and of ferals