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
  23. Tear you away from me so loath, whose eyes in their languor
  24. Never are sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures.
  25. Nor will I send you forth with joy that gladdens my bosom,
  26. Nor will I suffer you show boon signs of favouring Fortune,
  27. But from my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow,
  28. Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;
  29. Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms,
  30. So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit
  31. Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.
  32. But, grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,
  33. (And our issue to guard and ward the seats of Erechtheus
  34. Sware She) that if your right is besprent with blood of the Man-Bull,
  35. Then do you so-wise act, and stored in memory's heart-core
  36. Dwell these mandates of me, no time their traces untracing.
  37. Dip, when first shall arise our hills to gladden your eye-glance,
  38. Down from your every mast the ill-omened vestments of mourning,
  39. Then let the twisten ropes upheave the whitest of canvas,
  40. Wherewith splendid shall gleam the tallest spars of the top-mast,
  41. These seeing sans delay with joy exalting my spirit
  42. Well shall I wot boon Time sets you returning before me."

  43. Such were the mandates which stored at first in memory constant
  44. Faded from Theseus' mind like mists, compelled by the whirlwind,
  45. Fleet from aerial crests of mountains hoary with snow-drifts.
  46. But as the sire had sought the citadel's summit for outlook,
  47. Wasting his anxious eyes with tear-floods evermore flowing,
  48. Forthright e'en as he saw the sail-gear darkened with dye-stain,
  49. Headlong himself flung he from the sea-cliff's pinnacled summit
  50. Holding his Theseus lost by doom of pitiless Fortune.
  51. Thus as he came to the home funest, his roof-tree paternal,
  52. Theseus (vaunting the death), what dule to the maiden of Minos
  53. Dealt with unminding mind so dree'd he similar dolour.