Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Never the burning lights of her eyes from gazing upon him
  2. Turned she, before fierce flame in all her body conceived she
  3. Down in its deepest depths and burning within her marrow.
  4. Ah, with unmitigate heart exciting wretchedmost furies,
  5. You, Boy sacrosanct! man's grief and gladness commingling,
  6. You too of Golgos Queen and Lady of leafy Idalium,
  7. Whelm'd you in what manner waves that maiden fantasy-fired,
  8. All for a blond-haired youth suspiring many a singulf!
  9. Whiles how dire was the dread she dreed in languishing heart-strings;
  10. How yet more, ever more, with golden splendour she paled!
  11. Whenas yearning to mate his might with the furious monster
  12. Theseus braved his death or sought the prizes of praises.
  13. Then of her gifts to gods not ingrate, nor profiting naught,
  14. Promise with silent lip, addressed she timidly vowing.
  15. For as an oak that shakes on topmost summit of Taurus
  16. Its boughs, or cone-growing pine from bole bark resin exuding,
  17. Whirlwind of passing might that twists the stems with its storm-blasts,
  18. Uproots, deracinates, forthright its trunk to the farthest,
  19. Prone falls, shattering wide what lies in line of its downfall,—
  20. Thus was that wildling flung by Theseus and vanquisht of body,
  21. Vainly tossing its horns and goring the wind to no purpose.
  22. Thence with abounding praise returned he, guiding his footsteps,
  23. While a fine drawn thread checked steps in wander abounding,
  24. Lest when issuing forth of the winding maze labyrinthine
  25. Baffled become his track by inobservable error.
  26. But for what cause should I, from early subject digressing,
  27. Tell of the daughter who the face of her sire unseeing,
  28. Eke her sister's embrace nor less her mother's endearments,
  29. Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
  30. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  31. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  32. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  33. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  34. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  35. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  36. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
  37. Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
  38. Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
  39. And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
  40. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  41. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  42. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
  43. Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
  44. Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
  45. (Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
  46. Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
  47. Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,
  48. That to have pity on me vouchsafed your pitiless bosom?
  49. Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy
  50. Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
  51. But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.
  52. All now empty and vain, by breath of the breezes bescattered!
  53. Now, let woman no more trust her to man when he sweareth,
  54. Ne'er let her hope to find or truth or faith in his pleadings,
  55. Who when lustful thought forelooks to somewhat attaining,
  56. Never an oath they fear, shall spare no promise to promise.
  57. Yet no sooner they sate all lewdness and lecherous fancy,
  58. Nothing remember of words and reck they naught of fore-swearing.
  59. Certes, you did I snatch from midmost whirlpool of ruin
  60. Deadly, and held it cheap loss of a brother to suffer
  61. Rather than fail your need (O false!) at hour the supremest.
  62. Therefore my limbs are doomed to be torn of birds, and of ferals
  63. Prey, nor shall upheapt Earth afford a grave to my body.
  64. Say me, what lioness bare you 'neath lone rock of the desert?
  65. What sea spued you conceived from out the spume of his surges!
  66. What manner Syrt, what ravening Scylla, what vasty Charybdis?
  67. you who for sweet life saved such meeds are lief of returning!
  68. If never willed your breast with me to mate you in marriage,
  69. Hating the savage law decreed by primitive parent,
  70. Still of your competence 'twas within your household to home me,
  71. Where I might serve as slave in gladsome service familiar,
  72. Laving your snow-white feet in clearest chrystalline waters