Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Often mothers shall own at funeral-rites of their children,
  2. What time their hoary hairs from head in ashes are loosened,
  3. And wi' their hands infirm thay smite their bosoms loose duggèd.
  4. Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
  1. For as the toiling hind bestrewing denseness of corn-stalks
  2. Under the broiling sun mows grain-fields yellow to harvest,
  3. So shall his baneful brand strew earth with corpses of Troy-born.
  4. Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
  1. Aye to his valorous worth attest shall wave of Scamander
  2. Which unto Hellè-Sea fast flowing ever dischargeth,
  3. Straiter whose course shall grow by up-heaped barrage of corpses,
  4. While in his depths runs warm his stream with slaughter commingled.
  5. Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
  1. Witness in fine shall be the victim rendered to death-stroke,
  2. Whenas the earthern tomb on lofty tumulus builded
  3. Shall of the stricken maid receive limbs white as the snow-flake.
  4. Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
  1. For when at last shall Fors to weary Achaians her fiat
  2. Deal, of Dardanus-town to burst Neptunian fetters,
  3. Then shall the high-reared tomb stand bathed with Polyxena's life-blood,