Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported
  2. Lives by Cecropia doomed to burials burying nowise;
  3. Then with a swifty ship and soft breathed breezes a-stirring,
  4. Sought he Minos the Haughty where homed in proudest of Mansions.
  5. Him as with yearning glance forthright espied the royal
  6. Maiden, whom pure chaste couch aspiring delicate odours
  7. Cherisht, in soft embrace of a mother comforted all-whiles,
  8. (E'en as the myrtles begot by the flowing floods of Eurotas,
  9. Or as the tincts distinct brought forth by breath of the springtide)
  10. Never the burning lights of her eyes from gazing upon him
  11. Turned she, before fierce flame in all her body conceived she
  12. Down in its deepest depths and burning within her marrow.
  13. Ah, with unmitigate heart exciting wretchedmost furies,
  14. You, Boy sacrosanct! man's grief and gladness commingling,
  15. You too of Golgos Queen and Lady of leafy Idalium,
  16. Whelm'd you in what manner waves that maiden fantasy-fired,
  17. All for a blond-haired youth suspiring many a singulf!
  18. Whiles how dire was the dread she dreed in languishing heart-strings;
  19. How yet more, ever more, with golden splendour she paled!
  20. Whenas yearning to mate his might with the furious monster
  21. Theseus braved his death or sought the prizes of praises.
  22. Then of her gifts to gods not ingrate, nor profiting naught,
  23. Promise with silent lip, addressed she timidly vowing.
  24. For as an oak that shakes on topmost summit of Taurus
  25. Its boughs, or cone-growing pine from bole bark resin exuding,
  26. Whirlwind of passing might that twists the stems with its storm-blasts,
  27. Uproots, deracinates, forthright its trunk to the farthest,
  28. Prone falls, shattering wide what lies in line of its downfall,—
  29. Thus was that wildling flung by Theseus and vanquisht of body,
  30. Vainly tossing its horns and goring the wind to no purpose.
  31. Thence with abounding praise returned he, guiding his footsteps,
  32. While a fine drawn thread checked steps in wander abounding,
  33. Lest when issuing forth of the winding maze labyrinthine
  34. Baffled become his track by inobservable error.
  35. But for what cause should I, from early subject digressing,
  36. Tell of the daughter who the face of her sire unseeing,
  37. Eke her sister's embrace nor less her mother's endearments,
  38. Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
  39. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  40. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  41. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  42. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  43. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  44. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  45. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
  46. Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
  47. Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
  48. And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
  49. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  50. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  51. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
  52. Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
  53. Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
  54. (Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
  55. Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
  56. Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,
  57. That to have pity on me vouchsafed your pitiless bosom?
  58. Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy
  59. Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
  60. But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.
  61. All now empty and vain, by breath of the breezes bescattered!
  62. Now, let woman no more trust her to man when he sweareth,
  63. Ne'er let her hope to find or truth or faith in his pleadings,