Carmina

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and count all the mumblings of sour age at a penny's fee. Suns can set and rise again: we when once our brief light has set must sleep through a perpetual night. Give me a thousand kisses, and then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then another thousand without resting, then a hundred. Then, when we have made many thousands, we will confuse the count lest we know the numbering, so that no one can cast an evil eye on us through knowing the number of our kisses.

Flavius, you would speak of your sweetheart to Catullus, and you could not keep silent, were she not both ill-mannered and ungraceful. In truth you affect I know not what hot-blooded whore you love: this you are ashamed to confess. For your couch, fragrant with garlands and Syrian unguent, in no way mute cries out that you do not lie alone at night, and also the pillow and bolsters indented here and there, and the creakings and joggings of the quivering bed: unless you can silence these, nothing and again nothing avails you to hide your affairs. And why? You would not display such love-weary loins unless occupied in some tomfoolery. Therefore, whatever you have for good or ill, tell us! I want to call you and your loves to heaven in charming verse.