Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Hiding, enjoyed repose within our mansion beguested!
  2. Whither can wend I now? What hope lends help to the lost one?
  3. Idomenean mounts shall I scale? Ah, parted by whirlpools
  4. Widest, yon truculent main where yields it power of passage?
  5. Aid of my sire can I crave? Whom I willing abandoned,
  6. Treading in tracks of a youth bewrayed with blood of a brother!
  7. Can I console my soul with the helpful love of a helpmate
  8. Who flies me with pliant oars, flies overbounding the sea-depths?
  9. Nay, if this Coast I quit, this lone isle lends me no roof-tree,
  10. Nor aught issue allows begirt by billows of Ocean:
  11. Nowhere is path for flight: none hope shows: all things are silent:
  12. All be a desolate waste: all makes display of destruction.
  13. Yet never close these eyes in latest languor of dying,
  14. Ne'er from my wearied frame go forth slow-ebbing my senses,
  15. Ere from the Gods just doom implore I, treason-betrayed,
  16. And with my breath supreme firm faith of Celestials invoke I.
  17. Therefore, O you who 'venge man's deed with penalties direful,
  18. Eumenides! aye wont to bind with viperous hairlocks
  19. Foreheads,—Oh, deign outspeak fierce wrath from bosom outbreathing,
  20. Hither, Oh hither, speed, and lend you all ear to my grievance,