Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. For 'twas told of yore how forced by pestilence cruel,
  2. Eke as a blood rite due for the Androgeonian murder,
  3. Many a chosen youth and the bloom of damsels unmarried
  4. Food for the Minotaur, Cecropia was wont to befurnish.
  5. Seeing his narrow walls in such wise vexed with evils,
  6. Theseus of freest will for dear-loved Athens his body
  7. Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported
  8. Lives by Cecropia doomed to burials burying nowise;
  9. Then with a swifty ship and soft breathed breezes a-stirring,
  10. Sought he Minos the Haughty where homed in proudest of Mansions.
  11. Him as with yearning glance forthright espied the royal
  12. Maiden, whom pure chaste couch aspiring delicate odours
  13. Cherisht, in soft embrace of a mother comforted all-whiles,
  14. (E'en as the myrtles begot by the flowing floods of Eurotas,
  15. Or as the tincts distinct brought forth by breath of the springtide)
  16. Never the burning lights of her eyes from gazing upon him
  17. Turned she, before fierce flame in all her body conceived she
  18. Down in its deepest depths and burning within her marrow.
  19. Ah, with unmitigate heart exciting wretchedmost furies,
  20. You, Boy sacrosanct! man's grief and gladness commingling,
  21. You too of Golgos Queen and Lady of leafy Idalium,
  22. Whelm'd you in what manner waves that maiden fantasy-fired,
  23. All for a blond-haired youth suspiring many a singulf!
  24. Whiles how dire was the dread she dreed in languishing heart-strings;
  25. How yet more, ever more, with golden splendour she paled!
  26. Whenas yearning to mate his might with the furious monster
  27. Theseus braved his death or sought the prizes of praises.
  28. Then of her gifts to gods not ingrate, nor profiting naught,
  29. Promise with silent lip, addressed she timidly vowing.
  30. For as an oak that shakes on topmost summit of Taurus
  31. Its boughs, or cone-growing pine from bole bark resin exuding,
  32. Whirlwind of passing might that twists the stems with its storm-blasts,
  33. Uproots, deracinates, forthright its trunk to the farthest,
  34. Prone falls, shattering wide what lies in line of its downfall,—
  35. Thus was that wildling flung by Theseus and vanquisht of body,
  36. Vainly tossing its horns and goring the wind to no purpose.
  37. Thence with abounding praise returned he, guiding his footsteps,
  38. While a fine drawn thread checked steps in wander abounding,
  39. Lest when issuing forth of the winding maze labyrinthine
  40. Baffled become his track by inobservable error.
  41. But for what cause should I, from early subject digressing,
  42. Tell of the daughter who the face of her sire unseeing,
  43. Eke her sister's embrace nor less her mother's endearments,
  44. Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
  45. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  46. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  47. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  48. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  49. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  50. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  51. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,