Catullus
* * *
I HATE AND I LOVE
Translated by Peter Whigham
Contents
1
5
6
7
8
9
11
13
14
32
34
37
38
39
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43
45
46
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51
58
65
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GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS
Born c. 84 BCE
Died c. 54 BCE
Taken from Peter Whigham’s translation of The Poems, first published in 1966.
CATULLUS IN PENGUIN CLASSICS
The Poems
1
To whom should I present this
little book so carefully polished
but to you, Cornelius, who have always
been so tolerant of my verses,
you
who of us all has dared
to take the whole of human history
as his field
– three doctoral and weighty volumes!
Accept my book, then, Cornelius
for what it’s worth,
and may the Muse herself
turn as tolerant an eye upon these songs
in days to come.
5
Lesbia
live with me
& love me so
we’ll laugh at all
the sour-faced strict-
ures of the wise.
This sun once set
will rise again,
when our sun sets
follows night &
an endless sleep.
Kiss me now a
thousand times &
now a hundred
more & then a
hundred & a
thousand more again
till with so many
hundred thousand
kisses you & I
shall both lose count
nor any can
from envy of
so much of kissing
put his finger
on the number
of sweet kisses
you of me &
I of you,
darling, have had.
6
Your most recent acquisition, Flavius,
must be as unattractive as
(doubtless) she is unacceptable
or you would surely have told us about her.
You are wrapped up with a whore to end all whores
and ashamed to confess it.
You do not spend bachelor nights.
Your divan, reeking of Syrian unguents,
draped with bouquets & blossoms etc.
proclaims it,
the pillows & bedclothes indented in several places,
a ceaseless jolting & straining of the framework
the shaky accompaniment to your sex parade.
Without more discretion your silence is pointless.
Attenuated thighs betray your preoccupation.
Whoever, whatever she is, good or bad,
tell us, my friend –
Catullus will lift the two of you & your love-acts into the heavens
in the happiest of his hendecasyllables.
7
Curious to learn
how many kiss-
es of your lips
might satisfy
Lesbia, know
as many as
are grains of sand
between the oracle
of sweltering Jove
at Ammon &
the tomb of old
Battiades the First,
in Libya
where the silphium grows;
alternatively,
as many as
the sky has stars
at night shining
in quiet upon
the furtive loves
of mortal men,
as many kiss-
es of your lips
as these might slake
your own obsessed
Catullus, dear,
so many that
no prying eye
can keep the count
nor spiteful tongue fix
their total in
a fatal formula.
8
Break off
fallen Catullus
time to cut losses,
bright days shone once,
you followed a girl
here & there
loved as no other
perhaps
shall be loved,
then was the time
of love’s insouciance,
your lust as her will
matching.
Bright days shone
on both of you.
Now,
a woman is unwilling.
Follow suit
weak as you are
no chasing of mirages
no fallen love,
a clean break
hard against the past.
Not again, Lesbia.
No more.
Catullus is clear.
He won’t miss you.
He won’t crave it.
It is cold.
But you will whine.
You are ruined.
What will your life be?
Who will ‘visit’ your room?
Who uncover that beauty?
Whom will you love?
Whose girl will you be?
Whom kiss?
Whose lips bite?
Enough. Break.
Catullus.
Against the past.
9
Veraniolus,
first of friends,
have you returned
to your own roof
your close brothers
& your mother
still alive? In-
deed it’s true you’re
back again &
safe & sound
among us all.
So now I’ll watch
& listen to your
anecdotes of
Spanish men &
Spanish places
told as only
you can tell them.
I shall embrace
your neck & kiss
you on the mouth
& on the eyes,
Veraniolus …
Of all light-hearted
men & women
none is lighter-
hearted than Cat-
ullus is to-day.
11
Furius, Aurelius, friends of my youth,
whether I land up in the Far East,
where the long-drawn roll of the Indian Ocean
thumps on the beach,
or whether I find myself surrounded by Hyrcanians,
the supple Arabs, Sacians, Parthian bowmen,
or in the land where the seven-tongued Nile
colours the Middle Sea,
whether I scale the pinnacles of the Alps
viewing the monuments of Caesar triumphant,
the Rhine, the outlandish seas of
the ultimate Britons,
; whatever Fate has in store for me,
equally ready for anything,
I send Lesbia this valediction,
succinctly discourteous:
live with your three hundred lovers,
open your legs to them all (simultaneously)
lovelessly dragging the guts out of each of them
each time you do it,
blind to the love that I had for you
once, and that you, tart, wantonly crushed
as the passing plough-blade slashes the flower
at the field’s edge.
13
you in to dine
a few days hence
Fabullus mine,
and we’ll eat well
enough, my friend,
if you provide
the food & wine
& the girl, too,
pretty & willing.
I, Catullus,
promise you
wine & wit &
all the laughter
of the table
should you provide
whatever food
or wine you’re able.
For, charmed Fabullus,
your old friend’s purse
is empty now
of all but cobwebs!
In return, the
distillation
of Love’s essence
take from me, or
whatever’s more
attractive or
seductive than
Love’s essence. For
Venus & her
Cupids gave my
girl an unguent,
this I’ll give to
you, Fabullus, and
when you’ve smelt it
all you’ll want the
gods to do is
make you one
gigantic nose
to smell it, always, with.
14
If, my irrepressible Calvus, I didn’t
happen to love you more than my eyes
this hoax gift of yours would have made me
as cross as Vatinius …
What have I done to deserve
such (& so many) poets?
I am utterly demoralised.
May the gods scowl on whoever
sent you this clutch of offenders
in the first place.
– A grateful client?
I smell Sulla, the pedagogue.
A recherché & freshly culled volume,
such as this, could well come from his hands.
And that’s as it should be – a meet &
acceptable sign that your efforts
(on his behalf) are not wasted.
But the collection itself is implacably bad.
And you, naturally, sent it along to Catullus
– your Saturnalian bonne-bouche –
so that Gaius, on this of all days,
might suffer the refinements of tedium.
No. Little Calvus. You won’t run away
with this – for tomorrow, when the shops open,
I shall comb the bookstalls for Caesius, Aquinus,
Suffenus – all who excel in unpleasantness –
and compound your present with interest.
Until then, hence from my home, hence
by the ill-footed porter who brought you.
Parasites of our generation. Poets I blush for.
32
Call me to you
at siesta
we’ll make love
my gold & jewels
my treasure trove
my sweet Ipsíthilla,
when you invite
me lock no doors
nor change your mind
& step outside
but stay at home
& in your room
prepare yourself
to come nine times
straight off together,
in fact if you
should want it now
I’ll come at once
for lolling on
the sofa here
with jutting cock
and stuffed with food
I’m ripe for stuffing
you,
my sweet Ipsíthilla.
34
Moving in her radiant care
chaste men and girls moving
wholly in Diana’s care
hymn her in this.
Latona’s daughter, greatest
of the Olympian race, dropped
at birth beneath the olive trees
on Delian hills,
alive over mountain passes,
over green glades and
sequestered glens,
– in the talkative burn,
Juno Lucina in the groans
of parturition, Hecat, fear-
ful at crossed ways, the nymph
of false moonlight.
You whose menstrual course
divides our year, stuff
the farmer’s harvest barn
with harvesting.
Sacred, by whatever name invoked
in whatever phase you wear, turn
upon our Roman brood, of old
your shielding look.
37
Nine posts, five doors, up the Clivus
Victoriae, stands an
unsavoury resort … unsavoury
habitués inside,
who think that only they have cocks,
that only they can ruffle
a pudendum, the rest of us
as apt as goats. I could
cheerfully bugger you all while
you wait, kicking your heels.
Your numbers, a hundred or so,
leave me undaunted. Think
of the man-power involved! And
think of me now, scribbling
each of your names in black letters
on the house-front. For she
whom once I loved as no other
girl has been loved lives here.
Who has fled from my touch & sight.
Whom I fought for & could
not keep … A mixed bunch – successful,
respectable men swap
places with dregs from the back-streets.
She is open to all.
And one, who outdoes his home-grown
rabbits – Egnatius,
the Spaniard with the beard, known for
his wild dundrearies &
glistening teeth, assiduously
(with native urine) scrubbed.
38
Angst,
ennui & angst
consume my days & weeks,
and you have not written
or done anything to soothe my illness.
I am piqued.
So much for our friendship.
Ah! Cornificius,
a word from you would cure everything,
though more full of tears
than a line from Simonides.
39
Because he has bright white teeth, Eg-
natius whips out a
tooth-flash on all possible
(& impossible) occasions.
You’re in court. Counsel for defence
concludes a moving per-
oration. (Grin.) At a funeral,
on all sides heart-broken
mothers weep for only sons. (Grin.)
Where, when, whatever the
place or time – grin. It could be a
sort of ‘tic’. If so, it’s
a very vulgar tic, Egnatius,
& one to be rid of.
A Roman, a Tiburtine or
Sabine, washes his teeth.
Well-fed Umbrians & over-
fed Etruscans wash theirs
daily. The dark Lanuvians
(who don’t need to), & we
Veronese, all wash our teeth …
But we keep them tucked in.
We spare ourselves the nadir of
inanity
– inane
laughter. You come from Spain. Spaniards
use their morning urine
for tooth-wash. To us that blinding
mouthful means one thing &
one only – the quantity of
urine you have swallowed.
40
Whatever could have possessed you
to impale yourself on my iambics?
What ill-disposed deity inveigled you
Ravidus, into this one-sided contest?
Was it a letch for celebrity,
at no matter what cost?
– then you shall have it:
‘Ravidus, loving in the place Catullus loves,
is lastingly nailed in this lampoon.’
43
O elegant whore!
with the remarkably long nose
unshapely feet
lack lustre eyes
fat fingers
wet mouth
and language not of the choicest,
you are I believe the mistress
of the hell-rake Formianus.
And the Province calls you beautiful;
they set you up beside my Lesbia.
O generation witless and uncouth!
45
Phyllis Corydon clutched to him
her head at rest beneath his chin.
He said, ‘If I don’t love you more
than ever maid was loved before
I shall (if this the years not prove)
in Afric or the Indian grove
some green-eyed lion serve for food.’
Amor, to show that he was pleased,
approvingly (in silence) sneezed.
Then Phyllis slightly raised her head
(her lips were full & wet & red)
to kiss the sweet eyes full of her:
‘Corydon mine, with me prefer
always to serve unique Amor:
my softer flesh the fire licks
more greedily and deeper sticks.’
Amor, to show that he was pleased,
approvingly (in silence) sneezed.
So loving & loved so, they rove
between twin auspices of Love.
Corydon sets in his eye-lust
Phyllis before all other dust;
Phyllis on Corydon expends
her nubile toys, Love’s dividends.
Could Venus yield more love-delight
than here she grants in Love’s requite?
46
Now spring bursts
with warm airs