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,
  18. Hither, Oh hither, speed, and lend you all ear to my grievance,
  19. Which now sad I (alas!) outpour from innermost vitals
  20. Maugre my will, sans help, blind, fired with furious madness.
  21. And, as indeed all spring from veriest core of my bosom,
  22. Suffer you not the cause of grief and woe to evanish;
  23. But with the Will wherewith could Theseus leave me in loneness,
  24. Goddesses! bid that Will lead him, lead his, to destruction."

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

  38. "Son! far nearer my heart (you alone) than life of the longest,
  39. Son, I perforce dismiss to doubtful, dangerous chances,
  40. Lately restored to me when eld draws nearest his ending,
  41. Since such fortune in me, and in you such boiling of valour
  42. Tear you away from me so loath, whose eyes in their languor
  43. Never are sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures.
  44. Nor will I send you forth with joy that gladdens my bosom,
  45. Nor will I suffer you show boon signs of favouring Fortune,
  46. But from my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow,
  47. Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;
  48. Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms,
  49. So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit
  50. Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.
  51. But, grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,