Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Many a chosen youth and the bloom of damsels unmarried
  2. Food for the Minotaur, Cecropia was wont to befurnish.
  3. Seeing his narrow walls in such wise vexed with evils,
  4. Theseus of freest will for dear-loved Athens his body
  5. Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported
  6. Lives by Cecropia doomed to burials burying nowise;
  7. Then with a swifty ship and soft breathed breezes a-stirring,
  8. Sought he Minos the Haughty where homed in proudest of Mansions.
  9. Him as with yearning glance forthright espied the royal
  10. Maiden, whom pure chaste couch aspiring delicate odours
  11. Cherisht, in soft embrace of a mother comforted all-whiles,
  12. (E'en as the myrtles begot by the flowing floods of Eurotas,
  13. Or as the tincts distinct brought forth by breath of the springtide)