Carmina

Catullus

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

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