Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. All of her sprite, her mind, forlorn, were evermore hanging.
  2. Ah, sad soul, by grief and grievance driven beside you,
  3. Sowed Erycina first those brambly cares in thy bosom,
  4. What while issuing fierce with will enstarkened, Theseus
  5. Forth from the bow-bent shore Piraean putting a-seawards
  6. Reacht the Gortynian roofs where dwelt the injurious Monarch.
  7. For 'twas told of yore how forced by pestilence cruel,
  8. Eke as a blood rite due for the Androgeonian murder,
  9. Many a chosen youth and the bloom of damsels unmarried
  10. Food for the Minotaur, Cecropia was wont to befurnish.
  11. Seeing his narrow walls in such wise vexed with evils,
  12. Theseus of freest will for dear-loved Athens his body
  13. Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported
  14. Lives by Cecropia doomed to burials burying nowise;
  15. Then with a swifty ship and soft breathed breezes a-stirring,
  16. Sought he Minos the Haughty where homed in proudest of Mansions.
  17. Him as with yearning glance forthright espied the royal
  18. Maiden, whom pure chaste couch aspiring delicate odours
  19. Cherisht, in soft embrace of a mother comforted all-whiles,
  20. (E'en as the myrtles begot by the flowing floods of Eurotas,