Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Builded herself their car fast-flitting with lightest of breezes,
  2. Weaving plants of the pine conjoined in curve of the kelson;
  3. Foremost of all to imbue rude Amphitrite with ship-lore.
  4. Soon as her beak had burst through wind-rackt spaces of ocean,
  5. While the oar-tortured wave with spumy whiteness was blanching,
  6. Surged from the deep abyss and hoar-capped billows the faces
  7. Seaborn, Nereids eyeing the prodigy wonder-smitten.
  8. There too mortal orbs through softened spendours regarded
  9. Ocean-nymphs who exposed bodies denuded of raiment
  10. Bare to the breast upthrust from hoar froth capping the sea-depths.
  11. Then Thetis Peleus fired (men say) a-sudden with love,