Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  2. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  3. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
  4. Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
  5. Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
  6. (Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
  7. Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
  8. Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,
  9. That to have pity on me vouchsafed your pitiless bosom?
  10. Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy
  11. Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
  12. But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.
  13. All now empty and vain, by breath of the breezes bescattered!
  14. Now, let woman no more trust her to man when he sweareth,
  15. Ne'er let her hope to find or truth or faith in his pleadings,
  16. Who when lustful thought forelooks to somewhat attaining,
  17. Never an oath they fear, shall spare no promise to promise.
  18. Yet no sooner they sate all lewdness and lecherous fancy,
  19. Nothing remember of words and reck they naught of fore-swearing.
  20. Certes, you did I snatch from midmost whirlpool of ruin