Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy
  2. Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
  3. But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.
  4. All now empty and vain, by breath of the breezes bescattered!
  5. Now, let woman no more trust her to man when he sweareth,
  6. Ne'er let her hope to find or truth or faith in his pleadings,
  7. Who when lustful thought forelooks to somewhat attaining,
  8. Never an oath they fear, shall spare no promise to promise.
  9. Yet no sooner they sate all lewdness and lecherous fancy,
  10. Nothing remember of words and reck they naught of fore-swearing.
  11. Certes, you did I snatch from midmost whirlpool of ruin
  12. Deadly, and held it cheap loss of a brother to suffer
  13. Rather than fail your need (O false!) at hour the supremest.
  14. Therefore my limbs are doomed to be torn of birds, and of ferals
  15. Prey, nor shall upheapt Earth afford a grave to my body.
  16. Say me, what lioness bare you 'neath lone rock of the desert?
  17. What sea spued you conceived from out the spume of his surges!
  18. What manner Syrt, what ravening Scylla, what vasty Charybdis?
  19. you who for sweet life saved such meeds are lief of returning!
  20. If never willed your breast with me to mate you in marriage,
  21. Hating the savage law decreed by primitive parent,
  22. Still of your competence 'twas within your household to home me,
  23. Where I might serve as slave in gladsome service familiar,
  24. Laving your snow-white feet in clearest chrystalline waters
  25. Or with its purpling gear your couch in company strewing.
  26. Yet for what cause should I complain in vain to the winds that unknow me,
  27. (I so beside me with grief!) which ne'er of senses endued
  28. Hear not the words sent forth nor aught avail they to answer?
  29. Now be his course well-nigh engaged in midway of ocean,
  30. Nor any mortal shape appears in barrens of sea-wrack.
  31. Thus at the latest hour with insults over-sufficient
  32. E'en to my plaints fere Fate begrudges ears that would hear me.
  33. Jupiter! Lord of All-might, Oh would in days that are bygone
  34. Ne'er had Cecropian poops toucht ground at Gnossian foreshore,
  35. Nor to the unconquered Bull that tribute direful conveying
  36. Had the false Seaman bound to Cretan island his hawser,
  37. Nor had yon evil wight, 'neath shape the softest hard purpose
  38. Hiding, enjoyed repose within our mansion beguested!
  39. Whither can wend I now? What hope lends help to the lost one?
  40. Idomenean mounts shall I scale? Ah, parted by whirlpools
  41. Widest, yon truculent main where yields it power of passage?
  42. Aid of my sire can I crave? Whom I willing abandoned,
  43. Treading in tracks of a youth bewrayed with blood of a brother!
  44. Can I console my soul with the helpful love of a helpmate
  45. Who flies me with pliant oars, flies overbounding the sea-depths?
  46. Nay, if this Coast I quit, this lone isle lends me no roof-tree,
  47. Nor aught issue allows begirt by billows of Ocean:
  48. Nowhere is path for flight: none hope shows: all things are silent:
  49. All be a desolate waste: all makes display of destruction.
  50. Yet never close these eyes in latest languor of dying,
  51. Ne'er from my wearied frame go forth slow-ebbing my senses,
  52. Ere from the Gods just doom implore I, treason-betrayed,
  53. And with my breath supreme firm faith of Celestials invoke I.
  54. Therefore, O you who 'venge man's deed with penalties direful,
  55. Eumenides! aye wont to bind with viperous hairlocks
  56. Foreheads,—Oh, deign outspeak fierce wrath from bosom outbreathing,
  57. Hither, Oh hither, speed, and lend you all ear to my grievance,
  58. Which now sad I (alas!) outpour from innermost vitals
  59. Maugre my will, sans help, blind, fired with furious madness.
  60. And, as indeed all spring from veriest core of my bosom,
  61. Suffer you not the cause of grief and woe to evanish;
  62. But with the Will wherewith could Theseus leave me in loneness,
  63. Goddesses! bid that Will lead him, lead his, to destruction."

  64. E'en as she thus poured forth these words from anguish of bosom,
  65. And for this cruel deed, distracted, sued she for vengeance,
  66. Nodded the Ruler of Gods Celestial, matchless of All-might,
  67. When at the gest earth-plain and horrid spaces of ocean
  68. Trembled, and every sphere rockt stars and planets resplendent.
  69. Meanwhile Theseus himself, obscured in blindness of darkness
  70. As to his mind, dismiss'd from breast oblivious all things
  71. Erewhile enjoined and held hereto in memory constant,
  72. Nor for his saddened sire the gladness-signals uphoisting
  73. Heralded safe return within sight of the Erechthean harbour.
  74. For 'twas told of yore, when from walls of the Virginal Deess
  75. Aegeus speeding his son, to the care of breezes committed,
  76. Thus with a last embrace to the youth spoke words of commandment:

  77. "Son! far nearer my heart (you alone) than life of the longest,
  78. Son, I perforce dismiss to doubtful, dangerous chances,