LITMIR.BIZ

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to left, to right

       20 The breeze of invitation, or precisely set

       The sheets together op'd to catch a kindly Jove.

       Nor yet of any power whom the coasts adore

       Was heard a vow to soothe them, all the weary way

       From outer ocean unto glassy quiet here.

      25 But all the past is over; indolently now

       She rusts, a life in autumn, and her age devotes

       To Castor and with him ador'd, the twin divine.

      V.

      Living, Lesbia, we should e'en be loving.

       Sour severity, tongue of eld maligning,

       All be to us a penny's estimation.

      Suns set only to rise again to-morrow.

       5 We, when sets in a little hour the brief light,

       Sleep one infinite age, a night for ever.

      Thousand kisses, anon to these an hundred,

       Thousand kisses again, another hundred,

       Thousand give me again, another hundred.

      10 Then once heedfully counted all the thousands,

       We'll uncount them as idly; so we shall not

       Know, nor traitorous eye shall envy, knowing

       All those myriad happy many kisses.

      VI.

      But that, Flavius, hardly nice or honest

       This thy folly, methinks Catullus also

       E'en had known it, a whisper had betray'd thee.

      Some she-malady, some unhealthy wanton,

       5 Fires thee verily: thence the shy denial.

       Least, you keep not a lonely night of anguish;

       Quite too clamorous is that idly-feigning

       Couch, with wreaths, with a Syrian odour oozing;

       Then that pillow alike at either utmost

       10 Verge deep-dinted asunder, all the trembling

       Play, the strenuous unsophistication;

       All, O prodigal, all alike betray thee.

      Why? sides shrunken, a sullen hip disabled,

       Speak thee giddy, declare a misdemeanour.

      15 So, whatever is yours to tell or ill or

       Good, confess it. A witty verse awaits thee

       And thy lady, to place ye both in heaven.

      VII.

      Ask me, Lesbia, what the sum delightful

       Of thy kisses, enough to charm, to tire me?

      Multitudinous as the grains on even

       Lybian sands aromatic of Cyrene;

      5 'Twixt Jove's oracle in the sandy desert

       And where royally Battus old reposeth;

      Yea a company vast as in the silence

       Stars which stealthily gaze on happy lovers;

      E'en so many the kisses I to kiss thee

       10 Count, wild lover, enough to charm, to tire me;

      These no curious eye can wholly number,

       Tongue of jealousy ne'er bewitch nor harm them.

      VIII.

      Ah poor Catullus, learn to play the fool no more.

       Lost is the lost, thou know'st it, and the past is past.

      Bright once the days and sunny shone the light on thee,

       Still ever hasting where she led, the maid so fair,

       5 By me belov'd as maiden is belov'd no more.

      Was then enacting all the merry mirth wherein

       Thyself delighted, and the maid she said not nay.

       Ah truly bright and sunny shone the days on thee.

      Now she resigns thee; child, do thou resign no less,

       10 Nor follow her that flies thee, or to bide in woe

       Consent, but harden all thy heart, resolve, endure.

      Farewell, my love. Catullus is resolv'd, endures,

       He will not ask for pity, will not importune.

      But thou'lt be mourning thus to pine unask'd alway.

       15 O past retrieval faithless! Ah what hours are thine!

       When comes a likely wooer? who protests thou'rt fair?

      Who brooks to love thee? who decrees to live thine own?

       Whose kiss delights thee? whose the lips that own thy bite?

       Yet, yet, Catullus, learn to bear, resolve, endure.

      IX.

      Dear Veranius, you of all my comrades

       Worth, you only, a many goodly thousands,

       Speak they truly that you your hearth revisit,

       Brothers duteous, homely mother aged?

      5 Yes, believe them. O happy news, Catullus!

      I shall see him alive, alive shall hear him,

       Tribes Iberian, uses, haunts, declaring

      As his wont is; on him my neck reclining

       Kiss his flowery face, his eyes delightful.

      10 Now, all men that have any mirth about you,

       Know ye happier any, any blither?

      X.

      In the Forum as I was idly roaming

       Varus took me a merry dame to visit.

       She a lady, methought upon the moment,

       Of some quality, not without refinement.

      1.

      5 So, arrived, in a trice we fell on endless

       Themes colloquial; how the fact, the falsehood

       With Bithynia, what the case about it,

       Had it helped me to profit or to money.

      Then I told her a very truth; no atom

       10 There for company, praetor, hungry natives,

       Home might render a body aught the fatter:

      Then our praetor a castaway, could hugely

       Mulct his company, had a taste to jeer them.

      2.

      Spoke another, 'Yet anyways, to bear you

       15 Men were ready, enough to grace a litter.

       They grow quantities, if report belies not.'

       Then supremely myself to flaunt before her,

      I 'So thoroughly could not angry fortune

       Spite, I might not, afflicted in my province,

       20 Get erected a lusty eight to bear me.

      But so scrubby the poor sedan, the batter'd

       Frame-work, nobody there nor here could ever

       Lift it, painfully neck to nick adjusting.'

      3.

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