Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Likest a Bacchant-girl stone-carven, (O her sorrow!)
  2. 'Spies, a-tossing the while on sorest billows of love-care.
  3. Now no more on her blood-hued hair fine fillets retains she,
  4. No more now light veil conceals her bosom erst hidden,
  5. Now no more smooth zone contains her milky-hued paplets:
  6. All gear dropping adown from every part of her person
  7. Thrown, lie fronting her feet to the briny wavelets a sea-toy.
  8. But at such now no more of her veil or her fillet a-floating
  9. Had she regard: on you, Theseus! all of her heart-strength,
  10. All of her sprite, her mind, forlorn, were evermore hanging.
  11. Ah, sad soul, by grief and grievance driven beside you,
  12. Sowed Erycina first those brambly cares in thy bosom,
  13. What while issuing fierce with will enstarkened, Theseus
  14. Forth from the bow-bent shore Piraean putting a-seawards
  15. Reacht the Gortynian roofs where dwelt the injurious Monarch.
  16. For 'twas told of yore how forced by pestilence cruel,
  17. Eke as a blood rite due for the Androgeonian murder,
  18. Many a chosen youth and the bloom of damsels unmarried
  19. Food for the Minotaur, Cecropia was wont to befurnish.
  20. Seeing his narrow walls in such wise vexed with evils,
  21. Theseus of freest will for dear-loved Athens his body
  22. Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported
  23. Lives by Cecropia doomed to burials burying nowise;
  24. Then with a swifty ship and soft breathed breezes a-stirring,
  25. Sought he Minos the Haughty where homed in proudest of Mansions.
  26. Him as with yearning glance forthright espied the royal
  27. Maiden, whom pure chaste couch aspiring delicate odours
  28. Cherisht, in soft embrace of a mother comforted all-whiles,
  29. (E'en as the myrtles begot by the flowing floods of Eurotas,
  30. Or as the tincts distinct brought forth by breath of the springtide)
  31. Never the burning lights of her eyes from gazing upon him
  32. Turned she, before fierce flame in all her body conceived she
  33. Down in its deepest depths and burning within her marrow.
  34. Ah, with unmitigate heart exciting wretchedmost furies,
  35. You, Boy sacrosanct! man's grief and gladness commingling,
  36. You too of Golgos Queen and Lady of leafy Idalium,
  37. Whelm'd you in what manner waves that maiden fantasy-fired,
  38. All for a blond-haired youth suspiring many a singulf!
  39. Whiles how dire was the dread she dreed in languishing heart-strings;
  40. How yet more, ever more, with golden splendour she paled!
  41. Whenas yearning to mate his might with the furious monster
  42. Theseus braved his death or sought the prizes of praises.