Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. All for a blond-haired youth suspiring many a singulf!
  2. Whiles how dire was the dread she dreed in languishing heart-strings;
  3. How yet more, ever more, with golden splendour she paled!
  4. Whenas yearning to mate his might with the furious monster
  5. Theseus braved his death or sought the prizes of praises.
  6. Then of her gifts to gods not ingrate, nor profiting naught,
  7. Promise with silent lip, addressed she timidly vowing.
  8. For as an oak that shakes on topmost summit of Taurus
  9. Its boughs, or cone-growing pine from bole bark resin exuding,
  10. Whirlwind of passing might that twists the stems with its storm-blasts,
  11. Uproots, deracinates, forthright its trunk to the farthest,
  12. Prone falls, shattering wide what lies in line of its downfall,—
  13. Thus was that wildling flung by Theseus and vanquisht of body,
  14. Vainly tossing its horns and goring the wind to no purpose.
  15. Thence with abounding praise returned he, guiding his footsteps,
  16. While a fine drawn thread checked steps in wander abounding,
  17. Lest when issuing forth of the winding maze labyrinthine
  18. Baffled become his track by inobservable error.
  19. But for what cause should I, from early subject digressing,
  20. Tell of the daughter who the face of her sire unseeing,
  21. Eke her sister's embrace nor less her mother's endearments,
  22. Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
  23. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  24. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  25. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  26. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  27. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  28. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  29. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
  30. Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
  31. Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
  32. And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
  33. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  34. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  35. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,