Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Maugre my will, sans help, blind, fired with furious madness.
  2. And, as indeed all spring from veriest core of my bosom,
  3. Suffer you not the cause of grief and woe to evanish;
  4. But with the Will wherewith could Theseus leave me in loneness,
  5. Goddesses! bid that Will lead him, lead his, to destruction."

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

  19. "Son! far nearer my heart (you alone) than life of the longest,
  20. Son, I perforce dismiss to doubtful, dangerous chances,
  21. Lately restored to me when eld draws nearest his ending,
  22. Since such fortune in me, and in you such boiling of valour