Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Yet how sad was the speech thou spakest, thy husband farewelling!
  2. (Jupiter!) Often thine eyes wiping with sorrowful hand!
  3. What manner God so great thus changed thee? Is it that lovers
  4. Never will tarry afar parted from person beloved?
  5. Then unto every God on behalf of thy helpmate, thy sweeting,
  6. Me thou gayest in vow, not without bloodshed of bulls,
  7. If he be granted return, and long while nowise delaying,
  8. Captive Asia he add unto Egyptian bounds.
  9. Now for such causes I, enrolled in host of the Heavens,
  10. By a new present, discharge promise thou madest of old:
  11. Maugrè my will, 0 Queen, my place on thy head I relinquished,
  12. Maugrè my will, I attest, swearing by thee and thy head;
  13. Penalty due shall befall whoso makes oath to no purpose.
  14. Yet who assumes the vaunt forceful as iron to be?
  15. E'en was that mount o'erthrown, though greatest in universe, where through
  16. Thía's illustrious race speeded its voyage to end,
  17. Whenas the Medes brought forth new sea, and barbarous youth-hood
  18. Urged an Armada to swim traversing middle-Athos.
  19. What can be done by Hair when such things yield them to Iron?
  20. Jupiter! Grant Chalybon perish the whole of the race,
  21. Eke who in primal times ore seeking under the surface
  22. Showed th' example, and spalled iron however so hard.
  23. Shortly before I was shorn my sister tresses bewailèd