Carmina

Furius and Aurelius, comrades of Catullus, whether he forces his way to furthest India where the shore is lashed by the far-echoing waves of the Dawn, or whether to the land of the Hyrcanians or soft Arabs, or whether to the land of the Sacians or quiver-bearing Parthians, or where the seven-mouthed Nile colors the sea, or whether he traverses the lofty Alps, gazing at the monuments of mighty Caesar, the Gallic Rhine, the shuddering water and remotest Britons, prepared to attempt all these things at once, whatever the will of the heavenly gods may bear,—repeat to my girl a few words, though they are not at all good. May she live and flourish with her fornicators, and may she hold three hundred at once in her embrace, loving not one in truth, but bursting again and again the guts of all: nor may she look back upon my love as before, which by her lapse has fallen, just as a flower on the meadow's edge, after the touch of the passing plough.

Marrucinius Asinius, you do not use your left hand nicely amid the jests and wine: you make off with the napkins of the careless. Do you think this is witty? It escapes you, fool, how coarse a thing and unbecoming it is! Don't you believe me? Believe your brother Pollio who would willingly give a talent to divert you from your thefts: for he is a lad skilled in pleasantries and clever talk. Therefore, either expect three hundred hendecasyllables, or return me my napkin which I esteem, not for its value but as a pledge of remembrance from my comrade. For Fabullus and Veranius sent me napkins as a gift from Iberian Saetabis; these I must love even as I do Veraniolus and Fabullus.