Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. While the oar-tortured wave with spumy whiteness was blanching,
  2. Surged from the deep abyss and hoar-capped billows the faces
  3. Seaborn, Nereids eyeing the prodigy wonder-smitten.
  4. There too mortal orbs through softened spendours regarded
  5. Ocean-nymphs who exposed bodies denuded of raiment
  6. Bare to the breast upthrust from hoar froth capping the sea-depths.
  7. Then Thetis Peleus fired (men say) a-sudden with love,
  8. Then Thetis nowise spurned to mate and marry with mortal,
  9. Then Thetis' Sire himself her yoke with Peleus sanctioned.
  10. Oh, in those happier days now fondly yearned-for, you heroes
  11. Born; (all hail!) of the gods begotten, and excellent issue
  12. Bred by your mothers, all hail! and placid deal me your favour.
  13. Oft with the sound of me, in strains and spells I'll invoke you;
  14. You too by wedding-torch so happily, highly augmented,
  15. Peleus, Thessaly's ward, in whose favor Jupiter himself,
  16. The Father of the gods, resigned his passions.
  17. You Thetis, fairest of maids Nereian, vouchsafed to marry?
  18. You did Tethys empower to woo and wed with her grandchild;
  19. Nor less Oceanus, with water compassing th' Earth-globe?
  20. But when ended the term, and wisht-for light of the day-tide
  21. Uprose, flocks to the house in concourse mighty, convened,
  22. Thessaly all, with glad assembly the Palace fulfilling:
  23. Presents afore they bring, and joy in faces declare they.
  24. Cieros abides a desert: they quit Phthiotican Tempe,
  25. Homesteads of Crannon-town, eke bulwarkt walls Larissa;
  26. Meeting at Pharsalus, and roof Pharsalian seeking.
  27. None will the fields now till; soft wax all necks the oxen,
  28. Never the humble vine is purged by curve of the rake-tooth,
  29. Never a pruner's hook thins out the shade of the tree-tufts,
  30. Never a bull up-plows broad glebe with bend of the coulter,
  31. Over whose point unuse displays the squalor of rust-stain.
  32. But in the homestead's heart, where'er that opulent palace
  33. Hides a retreat, all shines with splendour of gold and of silver.
  34. Ivory blanches the seats, bright gleam the flagons a-table,
  35. All of the mansion joys in royal riches and grandeur.
  36. But for the Diva's use bestrewn is the genial bedstead,
  37. Hidden in midmost stead, and its polisht framework of Indian
  38. Tusk underlies its cloth empurpled by juice of the dye-shell.
  39. This be a figured cloth with forms of manhood primeval