CATULLUS: THE POEMS
A.S.Kline ã 2001 All Rights Reserved
Contents
1. The
Dedication: to Cornelius
3. The Death of
Lesbia’s Sparrow
5. Let’s Live and
Love: to Lesbia
9. Back from
Spain: to Veranius
10. Home Truths
for Varus’s girl: to Varus
11. Words against
Lesbia: to Furius and Aurelius. 15
12. Stop Stealing
the Napkins! : to Asinius Marrucinus
14. What a Book!
: to Calvus the Poet
16. A Rebuke: to
Aurelius and Furius
17. The Town of
Cologna Veneta
22. People Who
Live in Glass Houses: to Varus. 25
24. Furius’s
Poverty: to Iuventius
25. My Things
Back Please: to Thallus
28. Patronage: to
Veranus and Fabullus
33. A Suggestion:
to Vibennius
36.
Burnt-Offering: to Volusius’s Droppings
37. Free for All:
to the Regulars and Egnatius
38. A Word
Please: to Cornificius
40. You want
Fame? : to Ravidus
41. An
Unreasonable Demand: to Ameana. 44
42. The Writing
Tablets: to the Hendecasyllables
47. Preferment:
to Porcius and Socration
49. A Compliment:
to Marcus Tullius Cicero
50. Yesterday: to
Licinius Calvus
51 An Imitation
of Sappho: to Lesbia
53. Laughter in
Court: to Gaius Licinius Calvus. 56
54. Oh Caesar! :
of Otho’s head
55. Where are
You? : to Camerius
57. You Two! : to
Caius Julius Caesar
58. Lament for
Lesbia: to Marcus Caelius Rufus. 61
61. Epithalamion:
for Vinia and Manlius
64. Of the Argonauts
and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis
66. The Lock of
Hair: Berenice
67. Of Someone’s
Adulterous Door
76. Past
Kindness: to the Gods
81. Strange
Taste: to Iuventius
88. Incest in the
Family: to Gellius
93. Indifference:
to Gaius Julius Caesar
95. Smyrna: to
Gaius Helvius Cinna
96. Beyond The
Grave: to Gaius Licinius Calvus. 123
99. Stolen
Kisses: to Iuventius
100. A Choice: to
Marcus Caelius
101. Ave Atque
Vale: An Offering to the Dead
113. Fruitful: to
Gaius Helvius Cinna
116. The Last
Word: to Gellius
of wit, just polished
off with dry pumice?
To you, Cornelius: since you were accustomed
to consider my trifles
worth something
even then, when you
alone of Italians
dared to explain all
the ages, in three learned
works, by Jupiter, and
with the greatest labour.
Then take this little
book for your own: whatever
it is, and is worth:
virgin Muse, patroness,
let it last, for more
lives than one.
whom she plays with,
holds to her breast,
whom, greedy, she
gives her little finger to,
often provoking you to a sharp bite,
whenever my shining
desire wishes
to play with something
she loves,
I suppose, while
strong passion abates,
it might be a small
relief from her pain:
might I toy with you
as she does
and ease the cares of
a sad mind!
that golden apple was
to the swift girl,
that loosed her belt,
too long tied.
and such of you as
love beauty:
my girl’s sparrow is
dead,
sparrow, the girl’s
delight,
whom she loved more
than her eyes.
For he was sweet as
honey, and knew her
as well as the girl
her own mother,
he never moved from
her lap,
but, hopping about
here and there,
chirped to his
mistress alone.
Now he goes down the
shadowy road
from which they say no
one returns.
Now let evil be yours,
evil shadows of Orcus,
that devour everything
of beauty:
you’ve stolen lovely
sparrow from me.
O evil deed! O poor
little sparrow!
Now, by your efforts,
my girl’s eyes
are swollen and red
with weeping.
that she was the
fastest of craft,
not to be challenged
for speed
by any vessel afloat,
whether
driven by sail or the
labour of oars.
The threatening
Adriatic coast won’t deny it,
nor the isles of the Cyclades,
nor noble Rhodes, nor
fearful Bosphorus,
nor the grim bay of
the Black Sea
where, before becoming
a boat, she was
leafy wood: for on the
heights of Cytorus
she often hissed to
the whispering leaves.
The boat says these
things were well known to you,
and are, Amastris and box-wood clad Cytorus:
she says from the very
beginning she stood
on your slope, that
she dipped her oars
in your water, and
carried her owner from there
over so many
headstrong breakers,
whether the wind cried
from starboard
or larboard, or
whether Jupiter struck at the sheets
on one side and the
other, together:
and no prayers to the
gods of the shore were offered
for her, when she came
from a foreign sea
here, as far as this
limpid lake.
But that’s past: now
hidden away here
she ages quietly and
offers herself to you,
Castor and his brother, heavenly Twins.
and all the words of
the old, and so moral,
may they be worth less
than nothing to us!
Suns may set, and suns
may rise again:
but when our brief
light has set,
night is one long
everlasting sleep.
Give me a thousand
kisses, a hundred more,
another thousand, and
another hundred,
and, when we’ve
counted up the many thousands,
confuse them so as not
to know them all,
so that no enemy may
cast an evil eye,
were tasteless and
inelegant,
you’d want to tell,
and couldn’t be silent.
Surely you’re in love with
some feverish
little whore: you’re
ashamed to confess it.
Now, pointlessly
silent, you don’t seem to be
idle of nights, it’s
proclaimed by your bed
garlanded, fragrant
with Syrian perfume,
squashed cushions and
pillows, here and there,
and the trembling
frame shaken,
quivering and
wandering about.
But being silent does
nothing for you.
Why? Spread thighs
blab it’s not so,
if not quite what
foolishness you commit.
How and whatever
you’ve got, good or bad,
tell us. I want to
name you and your loves
to the heavens in
charming verse.
would be enough and
more to satisfy me.
As many as the grains
of Libyan sand
that lie between hot Jupiter’s oracle,
at Ammon, in resin-producing Cyrene,
and old Battiades sacred tomb:
or as many as the
stars, when night is still,
gazing down on secret
human desires:
as many of your kisses
kissed
are enough, and more,
for mad Catullus,
as can’t be counted by
spies
nor an evil tongue
bewitch us.
and let what you know
leads you to ruin, end.
Once, bright days
shone for you,
when you came often
drawn to the girl
loved as no other will
be loved by you.
Then there were many
pleasures with her,
that you wished, and
the girl not unwilling,
truly the bright days
shone for you.
And now she no longer
wants you: and you
weak man, be unwilling
to chase what flees,
or live in misery: be
strong-minded, stand firm.
Goodbye girl, now
Catullus is firm,
he doesn’t search for
you, won’t ask unwillingly.
But you’ll grieve,
when nobody asks.
Woe to you, wicked
girl, what life’s left for you?
Who’ll submit to you
now? Who’ll see your beauty?
Who now will you love?
Whose will they say you’ll be?
Who will you kiss?
Whose lips will you bite?
But you, Catullus, be
resolved to be firm.
my three hundred
thousand friends,
have you come home to
your own house
your harmonious
brothers, and old mother?
You’re back. O happy
news for me!
I’ll see you safe and
sound and listen
to your tales of
Spanish places that you’ve done,
and tribes, as is your
custom, and
hang about your neck,
and kiss
your lovely mouth and
eyes.
O who of all men is
happier
than I the gladdest
and happiest?
out of the Forum,
where I’m seen idling:
to a little whore I
immediately saw,
not very inelegant,
not unattractive,
who, when we came
there, met us
with varied chatter,
including, how might
Bithynia stand now, what’s it like,
and where
might the benefit have
been to me in cash.
I told her what’s true,
nothing at all,
while neither the
praetors nor their aides,
return any the richer,
especially since
our Praetor, Memmius, the bugger,
cared not a jot for
his followers.
‘But surely,’ they
said, you could have bought
slaves they say are
made for the litter there.’
I, so the girl might
take me to be wealthy,
said ‘no, for me
things weren’t so bad,
that coming across one
bad province,
I couldn’t buy eight
good men.’
But I’d no one, neither
here nor there,
who might even raise
to his shoulder
the shattered foot of
an old couch.
At this she, like the
shameless thing she was, said
‘I beg you, my dear
Catullus, for the loan of them,
just for a while: I’d
like to be carried
to Serap’s temple.’ ‘Wait’ I said to the
girl,
‘what I just said was
mine, isn’t actually in
my possession: my
friend Cinna, that’s Gaius,
purchased the thing
for himself.
Whether they’re his or
mine, what difference to me?
I use them just as
well as if I’d bought them myself.
But you are quite
tasteless, and annoying,
you with whom no
inexactness is allowed.’
whether he penetrates
farthest India,
where the Eastern
waves strike the shore
with deep resonance,
or among the Hyrcanians and supple Arabs,
or Sacians and Parthian bowmen,
or where the
seven-mouthed Nile
colours the waters,
or whether he’ll climb
the high Alps,
viewing great Caesar’s monuments,
the waters of Gallic
Rhine,
and the furthest
fierce Britons,
whatever the will of
the heavens
brings, ready now for
anything,
tell my girl this in a
few