Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Me thou gayest in vow, not without bloodshed of bulls,
  2. If he be granted return, and long while nowise delaying,
  3. Captive Asia he add unto Egyptian bounds.
  4. Now for such causes I, enrolled in host of the Heavens,
  5. By a new present, discharge promise thou madest of old:
  6. Maugrè my will, 0 Queen, my place on thy head I relinquished,
  7. Maugrè my will, I attest, swearing by thee and thy head;
  8. Penalty due shall befall whoso makes oath to no purpose.
  9. Yet who assumes the vaunt forceful as iron to be?
  10. E'en was that mount o'erthrown, though greatest in universe, where through
  11. Thía's illustrious race speeded its voyage to end,
  12. Whenas the Medes brought forth new sea, and barbarous youth-hood
  13. Urged an Armada to swim traversing middle-Athos.
  14. What can be done by Hair when such things yield them to Iron?
  15. Jupiter! Grant Chalybon perish the whole of the race,
  16. Eke who in primal times ore seeking under the surface
  17. Showed th' example, and spalled iron however so hard.
  18. Shortly before I was shorn my sister tresses bewailèd
  19. Lot of me, e'en as the sole brother to Memnon the Black,
  20. Winnowing upper air wi' feathers flashing and quiv'ring,
  21. Chloris' wing-borne steed, came before Arsinoë,
  22. Whence upraising myself he flies through aëry shadows,
  23. And in chaste Venus' breast drops he the present he bears.
  24. Eke Zephyritis had sent, for the purpose trusted, her bondsman,
  25. Settler of Grecian strain on the Canopian strand.
  26. So willed various Gods, lest sole 'mid lights of the Heavens
  27. Should Ariadne's crown taken from temples of her
  28. Glitter in gold, but we not less shine fulgent in splendour,
  29. We the consecrate spoils shed by a blond-hued head,
  30. Even as weeping-wet sought I the fanes of Celestials
  31. Placed me the Goddess a new light amid star-lights of old:
  32. For with Virgo in touch and joining the furious Lion's
  33. Radiance with Callisto, maid of Lyc´on beloved,