XXVIII.
Starving company, troop of hungry Piso,
Light of luggage, of outfit expeditious,
You, Veranius, you, my own Fabullus,
Say, what fortune? enough of empty masters,
Frost and famine, a lingering probation? 5
Stands your diary fair? is any profit
Enter’d given? as I to serve a praetor
Count each beggarly gift a timely profit.
Trust me, Memmius, you did aptly finger
My passivity, fool’d me most supinely. 10
Friends, confess it; in e’en as hard a fortune
You stand mulcted, on you a like abashless
Rake rides heavily. Court the great who wills it!
Gods and goddesses evil heap upon ye,
Rogues to Romulus and to Remus outcast. 15
XXIX.
Can any brook to see it, any tamely bear —
If any, gamester, epicure, a wanton, he —
Mamurra’s own whatever all the curly Gauls
Did else inherit, or the lonely Briton isle?
Can you look on, look idly, filthy Romulus? 5
Shall he, in o’er-assumption, o’er-repletion he,
Sedately saunter every dainty couch along,
A bright Adonis, as the snowy dove serene?
Can you look on, look idly, filthy Romulus?
Look idly, gamester, epicure, a wanton, you. 10
Unique commander, and was only this the plea
Detain’d you in that islet angle of the west,
To gorge the shrunk seducer irreclaimable
With haply twice a million, add a million yet?
What else was e’er unhealthy prodigality? 15
The waste? to lust a little? on the belly less?
Begin; a glutted hoard paternal; ebb the first.
To this, the booty Pontic; add the spoil from out
Iberia, known to Tagus’ amber ory stream.
Not only Gaul, nor only quail the Briton isles. 20
What help a rogue to fondle? is not all his act
To swallow monies, empty purses heap on heap?
But you — to please him only, shame to Rome, to me!
Could you the son, the father, idly ruin all?
XXX.
False Alfenus, in all amity frail, duty a prodigal,
Doth thy pity depart? Shall not a friend, traitor, a friend recal
Love? what courage is here me to betray, me to repudiate?
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Never sure did a lie, never a sin, please the celestials.
This you heed not; alas! leave me to new misery, desolate. (5)
O where now shall a man trust? liveth yet any fidelity?
You, you only did urge love to be free, life to surrender, you.
Guiding into the snare, falsely secure, prophet of happiness. 10
Now you leave me, retract, every deed, every word allow
Into nullity winds far to remove, vapoury clouds to bear. (10)
You forget me, but yet surely the Gods, surely remembereth
Faith; hereafter again honour awakes, causeth a wretch to rue.
XXXI.
O thou of islands jewel and of half-islands,
Fair Sirmio, whatever o’er the lakes’ clear rim
Or waste of ocean, Neptune holds, a two-fold pow’r;
What joy have I to see thee, and to gaze what glee!
Scarce yet believing Thunia past, the fair champaign 5
Bithunian, yet in safety thee to greet once more.
From cares to part us — where is any joy like this?
Then drops the soul her fardel, as the travel-tir’d
World-weary wand’rer touches home, returns, sinks down
In joy to slumber on the bed desir’d so long. 10
This meed, this only counts for e’en an age all toil.
O take a welcome, lovely Sirmio, thy lord’s,
And greet him happy; greet him all the lake Lydian;
Laugh out whatever laughter at the hearth rings clear.
XXXII.
List, I charge thee, my gentle Ipsithilla,
Lovely ravisher and my dainty mistress,
Say we’ll linger a lazy noon together.
Suits my company? lend a farther hearing:
See no jealousy make the gate against me, 5
See no fantasy lead thee out a-roaming.
Keep close chamber; anon in all profusion
Count me kisses again again returning.
Bides thy will? with a sudden haste command me;
Full and wistful, at ease reclin’d, a lover 10
Here I languish alone, supinely dreaming.
XXXIII.
Master-robber of all that haunt the bath-rooms,
Old Vibennius, and his heir the wanton;
(His the dirtier hands, the greedy father,
Yours the filthier heart, his heir as hungry;)
Please your knaveries hoist a sail for exile, 5
Pains and privacy? since by this the father’s
Thefts are palpable, and a rusty favour,
Son, picks never a penny from the people.
XXXIV.
Great Diana protecteth us,
Maids and boyhood in innocence.
Maidens virtuous, innocent
Boys, your song be Diana.
Hail, Latonia, thou that art 5
Throned daughter of enthronis’d
Jove; near Delian olive of
Mighty mother y-boren.
Queen of mountainous heights, of all
Forests leafy, delightable; 10
Glens in bowery depths remote,
Rivers wrathfully sounding.
Thee, Lucina, the travailing
Mother haileth, a sovereign
Juno; Trivia thou, the bright 15
Moon, a glory reflected.
Thou thine annual orb anew,
Goddess, monthly remeasuring,
Farmsteads lowly with affluent
Corn dost fill to the flowing. 20
Be thy heavenly name whate’er
Name shall please thee, in hallowing;
Still keep safely the glorious
Race of Romulus olden.
XXXV.
1.
Take Caecilius, him the tender-hearted
Bard, my paper, a wish from his Catullus.
Come from Larius, haste to leave the new-built
Comum’s watery city, seek Verona.
Some particular intimate reflexions 5
One would tell thee, a friend we love together.
2.
So he’ll quickly devour the way, if only
He’s no booby; for all a snowy maiden
Chide imperious, and her hands around him
Both in jealousy clasp’d, refuse departure. 10
She, if only report the truth bely not,
Doats, as hardly within her own possession.
3.
For since lately she read his high-preluding
Queen of Dindymus, all her heart is ever
Melting inly with ardour and with anguish. 15
Maiden, laudable is that high emotion,
Muse more rapturous, you, than any Sappho.
The Great Mother he surely sings divinely.
XXXVI.
1.
Vilest paper of all dishonour, annals
Of Volusius, hear my lovely lady’s
Vow, and pay it; awhile she swore to Venus
And fond Cupid, if ever I returning
Ceased from enmity, left to launch iambics, 5
She would surely devote the sorry poet’s
Choicest rarities unto sooty Vulcan,
The lame deity, there to blaze lamenting.
With such drollery, such supreme defiance,
Swore strange oath to the gods the naughty wanton. 10
2.
Now, O heavenly child of azure
Ocean,
Queen of Idaly, queen of Urian highlands,
Who Ancona the fair, the reedy Cnidos
Hauntest, Amathus and the lawny Golgi,
Or Dyrrhachium, hostel Adriatic; 15
Hear thy votaress, answer her petition;
’Tis most graceful, a dainty thought to charm thee.
But ye verses, away to fire, to burning,
Rank rusticities, empty vapid annals
Of Volusius, heap of all dishonour. 20
XXXVII.
1.
O frowsy tavern, frowsy fellowship therein,
Ninth post in order next beyond the twins cap-crown’d,
Shall manly service none but you alone employ,
Shall you alone whatever in the world smiles fair,
Possess it, every other hold to lack esteem? 5
Or if in idiot impotence arow you sit,
One hundred, yes two hundred, am not I, think you,
A man to bring mine action on your whole row there?
So think not, he that likes not; answer how you may,
With scorpion I, with emblem all your haunt will scrawl. 10
2.
For she the bright one, lately fled beyond these arms,
The maid belov’d as maiden is belov’d no more,
Whom I to win, stood often in the breach, fought long,
Has sat amongst you. Her the grand, the great, all, all
Do dearly love her; yea, beshrew the damned wrong, 15
Each slight seducer, every lounger highway-born,
You chiefly, peerless paragon of the tribe long-lock’d,
Rude Celtiberia’s child, the bushy rabbit-den,
Egnatius, so modish in the big bush-beard,
And teeth a native lotion hardly scours quite pure. 20
XXXVIII.
Cornificius, ill is your Catullus,
Ill, ah heaven, a weary weight of anguish,
More more weary with every day, with each hour.
You deny me the least, the very lightest
Help, one whisper of happy thought to cheer me. 5
Nay, I’m sorrowful. You to slight my passion?
Ah! one word, but a tiny word to cheer me,
Sad as ever a tear Simonidean.
XXXIX.
1.
Egnatius, spruce owner of superb white teeth,
Smiles sweetly, smiles for ever: is the bench in view
Where stands a pleader just prepar’d to rouse our tears,
Egnatius smiles sweetly; near the pyre they mourn
Where weeps a mother o’er the lost, the kind one son, 5
Egnatius smiles sweetly; what the time or place
Or thing soe’er, smiles sweetly; such a rare complaint
Is his, not handsome, scarce to please the town, say I.
2.
So take a warning for the nonce, my friend; town-bred
Were you, a Sabine hale, a pearly Tiburtine, 10
A frugal Umbrian body, Tuscan huge of paunch,
A grim Lanuvian black of hue, prodigious-tooth’d,
A Transpadane, my country not to pass untax’d,
In short whoever cleanly cares to rinse foul teeth,
Yet sweetly smiling ever I would have you not, 15
For silly laughter, it’s a silly thing indeed.
3.
Well: you’re a Celtiberian; in the parts thereby
What pass’d the night in water, every man, come dawn,
Scours clean the foul teeth with it and the gums rose-red;
So those Iberian snowy teeth, the more they shine, 20
So much the deeper they proclaim the draught impure.
XL.
What fatality, what chimera drives thee
Headlong, Ravidus, on to my iambics?
What fell deity, most malign to listen,
Fires thy fury to quarrel unavailing?
Wouldst thou busy the breath of half the people? 5
Break with clamour at any cost the silence?
Thou wilt do it; a wretch that hop’d my darling
Love to fondle, a sure retaliation.
XLI.
Ameana, the maiden of the people,
Asks me sesterces, all the many thousands.
Maiden she with a nose not wholly faultless,
Bankrupt Formian, your declar’d devotion.
Wherefore look to the maiden, her relations: 5
Call her family, summon all the doctors.
Your poor maiden is oddly touch’d; a mirror
Sure would lend her a soberer reflexion.
XLII.
1.
Come all hendecasyllables whatever,
Wheresoever ye house you, all whatever.
I the game of an impudent adultress?
She refuse to return to me the tablets
Where you syllable? O ye can’t be silent. 5
Up, have after her, ask renunciation.
Would ye know her? a woman, you shall eye her
Strutting loftily, whiles she laughs a loud laugh
Vast and vulgar, a Gaulish hound beseeming.
Form your circle about her, ask her, urge her. 10
‘Hark, adulteress, hand the note-book over.
Hark, the note-book, adultress, hand it over.’
2.
What? you scorn us? O ugly filth, detested
Trull, whatever is all abomination.
Nay then, louder. Enough as yet it is not. 15
If this only remains, perhaps the dog-like
Face may colour, a brassy blush may yield us.
Swell your voices in higher harsher yellings,
‘Hark, adulteress, hand the note-book over;
Hark, the note-book; adultress, hand it over.’ 20
Look, she moves not at all: we waste the moments.
Change your quality, try another issue.
‘Pure and virtuous, hand the note-book over.’
XLIII.
Hail, fair virgin, a nose among the larger,
Feet not dainty, nor eyes to match a raven,
Mouth scarce tenible, hands not wholly faultless,
Tongue most surely not absolute refinement,
Bankrupt Formian, your declar’d devotion. 5
Thou the beauty, the talk of all the province?
Thou my Lesbia tamely think to rival?
O preposterous, empty generation!
XLIV.
O thou my Sabine farmstead or my Tiburtine,
For who Catullus would not harm, avow, kind souls,
Thou surely art at Tibur; and who quarrel will
Sabine declare thee, stake the world to prove their say:
But be’st a Sabine, be’st a very Tiburtine, 5
At thy suburban villa what delight I knew
To spit the tiresome cough away, my lungs’ ill guest,
My belly brought me, not without a sad weak sin,
Because a costly dinner I desir’d too much.
For I, to feast with Sestius, that host unmatch’d, 10
A speech of his, pure poison, every line deep-drugg’d,
His speech against the plaintiff Antius, read through.
Whereat a cold chill, soon a gusty cough in fits,
Shook, shook me ever, till to thy retreat I fled,
There duly dosed with nettle and repose found cure. 15
So, now recruited, thanks superlative, dear farm,
I give thee, who so lightly didst avenge that sin.
And trust me, farm, if ever I again take up
With Sextius’ black charges, I’ll rebel no more;
But let the chill things damn to cold, to cough, not me 20
That read the volume — no, but him, the man’s vain self.
XLV.
1.
While Septimius in his arms his Acme
Fondled closely, ‘My own,’ said he, ‘my Acme,
If I love not as unto death, no
r hold me
Ever faithfully well-prepar’d to largest
Strain of fiery wooer yet to love thee, 5
Then in Libya, then may I alone in
Burning India face a sulky lion.’
Scarce he ended, upon the right did eager
Love sneeze amity; ’twas before to leftward.
2.
Acme quietly back her head reclining 10
Towards her boy, with a rosy mouth delightful
Kissed his passionate eyes elately swimming,
Then ‘Septimius, O my life’ she murmur’d,
‘So may he that is in this hour ascendant
Rule us ever, as in me burns a greater 15
Fire, a fiercer, in every vein triumphing.’
Scarce she ended, upon the right did eager
Love sneeze amity; ’twas before to leftward.
3.
So, that augury joyous each possessing,
Loves, is lov’d with an even emulation. 20
Poor Septimius, all to please his Acme,
Recks not Syria, recks not any Britain.
In Septimius only faithful Acme
Makes her softnesses, holds her happy pleasures.
When did mortal on any so rejoicing 25
Look, on union hallow’d as divinely?
XLVI.
Now soft spring with her early warmth returneth,
Now doth Zephyrus, health benignly breathing,
Still the boisterous equinoctial heaven.
Leave we Phrygia, leave the plains, Catullus,
Leave Nicaea, the sultry soil of harvest: 5
On for Asia, for the starry cities.
Now all flurry the soul is out a-ranging,
Now with vigour aflame the feet renew them.
Farewell company true, my lovely comrades.
You so joyfully borne from home together, 10
Now o’er many a weary way returning.
XLVII.
Porcius, Socration, the greedy Piso’s
Tools of thievery, rogues to famish ages,
So that filthy Priapus ousts to please you
My Veranius even and Fabullus?
What? shall you then at early noon carousing 5
Lap in luxury? they, my jolly comrades,
Search the streets on a quest of invitation?
XLVIII.
If, Juventius, I the grace win ever
Still on beauteous honied eyes to kiss thee,