Gaius Valerius Catullus

“ What god is worthier of solicitation by anxious amourists? Whom of the celestials do men worship more greatly? O Hymenaeus Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Thee for his young the trembling father beseeches, for thee virgins unclasp the zone from their breasts, for thee the fear-full bridegroom harkeneth with eager ear. [121]
Thou bearest to the youngster's arms that flower-like damsel, taken from her mother's bosom, O Hymenaeus Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Nor lacking thee may Venus take her will with fair Fame's approbation; but she may, with thy sanction. With such a God who dares compare? ”

“ Where lives a happier man than myself or—this being won me—
Who shall e'er boast that his life brought him more coveted lot?
If what one desires and covets is ever obtained unhoped for, this is specially grateful to the soul. Wherefore is it grateful to us and far dearer than gold, that thou com'st again, Lesbia, to longing me; com'st yet again, long-looked for and unhoped, thou restorest thyself. O day of whiter note for us! who lives more happily than I, sole I, or who can say what greater thing than this could be hoped for in life? ”

“ That when, opprest by fortune and in grievous case, thou didst send me this epistle o'erwrit with tears, that I might bear up shipwrecked thee tossed by the foaming waves of the sea, and restore thee from the threshold of death; thou whom neither sacred Venus suffers to repose in soft slumber, desolate on a a lonely couch, nor do the Muses divert with the sweet song of ancient poets, whilst thy anxious mind keeps vigil:—this is grateful to me, since thou dost call me thy friend, and dost seek hither the gifts of the Muses and of Venus. ”

“ Whenas my flowery years flowed in fruition of spring,
Much I disported enow, nor 'bode I a stranger to Goddess
Who with our cares is lief sweetness of bitter to mix:
Yet did a brother's death pursuits like these to my sorrow
20 Bid for me cease: Oh, snatcht brother! from wretchedest me.
Then, yea, thou by thy dying hast broke my comfort, O brother;
Buried together wi' thee lieth the whole of our house;
Perisht along wi' thyself all gauds and joys of our life-tide,
Douce love fostered by thee during the term of our days. ”

“ Glitter in gold, but we not less shine fulgent in splendour,
We the consecrate spoils shed by a blond-hued head,
Even as weeping-wet sought I the fanes of Celestials,
Placed me the Goddess a new light amid starlights of old:
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For with Virgo in touch and joining the furious Lion's
Radiance with Callisto, maid of Lycáon beloved,
Wind I still to the west, conducting tardy Boötes,
Who unwilling and slow must into Ocean merge.
Yet though press me o'night the pacing footprints of Godheads,
70 Tethys, hoary of hair, ever regains me by day. ”

“ Perforce shall slumber through one lasting night!
Kiss me a thousand times, then hundred more,
Then thousand others, then a new five-score,
Still other thousand other hundred store.
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Last when the sums to many thousands grow,
The tale let's trouble till no more we know,
Nor envious wight despiteful shall misween us
Knowing how many kisses have been kissed between us.
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and count all the mumblings of sour age at a penny's fee. Suns set can rise again: we when once our brief light has set must sleep through a perpetual night. ”

“ But the heedless youth, flying away, beats the waves with his oars, leaving his perjured vows to the gusty gales. In the dim distance from amidst the sea-weed, the daughter of Minos with sorrowful eyes, like a stone-carved Bacchante, gazes afar, alas! gazes after him, heaving with great waves of grief. No longer does the fragile fillet bind her yellow locks, no more with light veil is her hidden bosom covered, no more with rounded zone the milky breasts are clasped; down fallen from her body everything is scattered, hither, thither, and the salt waves toy with them in front of her very feet. ”

“ In so much that thine whole bosom being agitated, and thy senses being snatched from thee, thy mind wandered! But in truth I have known thee great of heart ever since thou wast a little maiden. Hast thou forgotten that noble deed, by which thou didst gain a regal wedlock, than which none dared other deeds bolder? Yet what grieving words didst thou speak when bidding thy bridegroom farewell! Jupiter! as with sad hand often thine eyes thou didst dry! What mighty god changed thee? Was it that lovers are unwilling to be long absent from [217] their dear one's body? ”

“ To that sweet poet, my comrade, Caecilius, I bid thee, paper, say: that he hie him here to Verona, quitting New Comum's city-walls and Larius' shore; for I wish him to give ear to certain counsels from a friend of his and mine. Wherefore, an he be wise, he'll devour the way, although a milk-white maid doth thousand times retard his going, and flinging both arms around his neck doth supplicate delay—a damsel who now, if truth be brought me, is undone with immoderate love of him. For, since what time she first read of the Dindymus Queen, flames devour the innermost marrow of the wretched one. ”

“ But after the earth was infected with heinous crime, and each one banished justice from their grasping mind, and brothers steeped their hands in fraternal blood, the son ceased grieving o'er departed parents, the sire craved for the funeral rites of his first-born that freely he might take of the flower of unwedded step-dame, the unholy mother, lying under her unknowing son, did not fear to sully her household gods with dishonour: everything licit and lawless commingled with mad infamy turned away from us the just-seeing mind of the gods. ”

“ Thee (Cælius!) for thou hast provèd
Singular friendship to us shown by the deeds it has done,
Whenas the flames insane had madded me, firing my marrow:
Cælius! happy be thou; ever be lusty in love.
Caelius, Aufilenus; and Quintius, Aufilena;—flower of the Veronese youth,—love desperately: this, the brother; that, the sister. This is, as one would say, true brotherhood and sweet friendship. To whom shall I incline the more? Caelius, to thee; for thy single devotion to us was shewn by its deeds, when the raging flame scorched my marrow. Be happy, O Caelius, be potent in love. ”

“ Be unwilling to wonder wherefore no woman, O Rufus, is wishful to place her tender thigh 'neath thee, not even if thou dost tempt her by the gift of a rare robe or by the delights of a crystal-clear gem. A certain ill tale injures thee, that thou bearest housed in the valley of thine armpits a grim goat. Hence everyone's fear. Nor be marvel: for 'tis an exceeding ill beast, with whom no fair girl will sleep. Wherefore, either murder that cruel plague of their noses, or cease to marvel why they fly? ”

“ Thou also, bride, what thy husband seekest beware of denying, lest he go elsewhere in its search. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Look, thy husband's home is thine, potent and goodly, and shall be thine for ever more. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Until with trembling movement thine hoary brow nods ever to everything. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Lift o'er the threshold with good omen thy glistening feet, and go through the polished gates. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Look! thy lord within, lying on Tyrian couch, all-expectant waits for thee. ”

“ Thy timbrel, Mother Cybebé, the firstings of thy rite,
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And as her tender finger-tips on bull-back hollow rang
She rose a-grieving and her song to listening comrades sang.
"Up Gallæ, hie together, haste for Cybebe's deep grove,
Hie to the Dindyménean dame, ye flocks that love to rove;
The which affecting stranger steads as bound in exile's brunt
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My sect pursuing led by me have nerved you to confront
The raging surge of salty sea and ocean's tyrant hand
As your hate of Venus' hest your manly forms unmann'd,
Gladden your souls, ye mistresses, with sense of error bann'd. ”

“ Veranius, of all my friends standing in the front, owned I three hundred thousands of them, hast thou come home to thy Penates, thy longing brothers and thine aged mother? Thou hast come back. O joyful news to me! I may see thee safe and sound, and may hear thee speak of regions, deeds, and peoples Iberian, as is thy manner; and reclining o'er thy neck shall kiss thy jocund mouth and eyes. O all ye blissfullest of men, who more gladsome or more blissful is than I am? ”

“ Not for other reason, Gellius, did I hope for thy faith to me in this our unhappy, this our desperate love (because I knew thee well nor thought thee constant or able to restrain thy mind from shameless act) , but that I saw this girl was neither thy mother nor thy sister, for whom my ardent love ate me. And although I have had many mutual dealings with thee, I did not credit this case to be enough cause for thee. Thou didst find it enough: so great is thy joy in every kind of guilt in which is something infamous. ”

“ But an forget thou, mindful be the Gods, and Faith in mind
Bears thee, and soon shall gar thee rue the deeds by thee design'd.
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Alfenus, unmemoried and unfaithful to thy comrades true, is there now no pity in thee, O hard of heart, for thine sweet loving friend? Dost thou betray me now, and scruplest not to play me false now, dishonourable one? Yet the irreverent deeds of traitorous men please not the dwellers in heaven: this thou takest no heed of, leaving me wretched amongst my ills. Alas, what may men do, I pray you, in whom put trust? ”

“ Is Venus abhorred by new-made brides? Why be the parents' joys turned aside by feigned tears, which they shed copiously amid the lights of the nuptial chamber? Untrue are their groans, by the gods I swear! This did my queen teach me by her many lamentings, when her bridegroom set out for stern warfare. Yet thou didst not mourn the widowhood of desolate couch, but the tearful separation from a dear brother? How care made sad inroads in thy very marrow! ”

“ Lighter and viler by far thou unto me hast become.
"How can this be?" dost ask: 'tis that such injury ever
Forces the hotter to love, also the less well to will.
Once thou didst profess to know but Catullus, Lesbia, nor wouldst hold Jove before me. I loved thee then, not only as a churl his mistress, but as a father loves his own sons and sons-in-law. Now I do know thee: wherefore if more strongly I burn, thou art nevertheless to me far viler and of lighter thought. How may this be? thou askest. Because such wrongs drive a lover to greater passion, but to less wishes of welfare. ”

“ What lioness bare thee 'neath lonely crag? What sea conceived and spued thee from its foamy crest? What Syrtis, what grasping Scylla, what vast Charybdis? O thou repayer with such guerdon for thy sweet life! If 'twas not thy heart's wish to yoke with me, through holding in horror the dread decrees of my stern sire, yet thou couldst have led me to thy home, where as thine handmaid I might have served thee with cheerful service, laving thy snowy feet with clear water, or spreading the purple coverlet o'er thy couch. ”

“ Can I crave comfort from the care of a faithful yokeman, who is fleeing with yielding oars, encurving 'midst whirling waters. If I turn from the beach there is no roof in this tenantless island, no way sheweth a passage, circled by waves of the sea; no way of flight, no hope; all denotes dumbness, desolation, and death. Natheless mine eyes shall not be dimmed in death, nor my senses secede from my spent frame, until I have besought from the gods a meet mulct for my betrayal, and implored the faith of the celestials with my latest breath. ”

“ Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles.
"No house ever yet enclosed such loves, no love bound lovers with such pact, as abideth with Thetis, as is the concord of Peleus. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles.
"To ye shall Achilles be born, a stranger to fear, to his foemen not by his back, but by his broad breast known, who, oft-times the victor in the uncertain struggle of the foot-race, shall outrun the fire-fleet footsteps of the speedy doe. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles. ”

“ And therefore borne in a speedy craft by favouring breezes, he came to the imperious Minos and his superb seat. Instant the royal virgin him saw with longing glance, she whom the chaste couch out-breathing sweetest of scents cradled in her mother's tender enfoldings, like to the myrtle which the rivers of Eurotas produce, or the many-tinted blooms opening with the springtide's breezes, she bent not down away from him her kindling glance, until the flame spread through her whole body, and burned into her innermost marrow. ”

“ Let dull delay depart from your thoughts, together haste ye, follow to the Phrygian home of Cybebe, to the Phrygian woods of the Goddess, where sounds the cymbal's voice, where the tambour resounds, where the Phrygian flautist pipes deep notes on the curved reed, where the ivy-clad Maenades furiously toss their heads, where they enact their sacred orgies with shrill-sounding ululations, where that wandering band of the Goddess is wont to flit about: thither 'tis meet to hasten with hurried mystic dance. ”

“ And up green Ida flits the Choir, with footsteps hurrying rash.
Then Atys frantic, panting, raves, a-wandering, lost, insane,
And leads with timbrel hent and treads the shades where shadows rain,
Like heifer spurning load of yoke in yet unbroken pride;
And the swift Gallæ follow fain their first and fleetfoot guide.
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But when the home of Cybebe they make with toil out-worn
O'er much, they lay them down to sleep and gifts of Ceres scorn;
Till heavy slumbers seal their eyelids langourous, drooping lowly,
And raving phrenzy flies each brain departing softly, slowly. ”

“ Ah, hard of heart, urging with misery to madness, O holy boy, who mingles men's cares and their joyings, and thou queen of Golgos and of foliaged Idalium, on what waves did you heave the mind-kindled maid, sighing full oft for the golden-haired guest! What dreads she bore in her swooning soul! How often did she grow sallower in sheen than gold! When craving to contend against the savage monster Theseus faced death or the palm of praise. Then gifts to the gods not unmeet not idly given, with promise from tight-closed lips did she address her vows. ”

“ Wretched, wretched soul, 'tis thine to grieve for ever and for aye. For whatso shape is there, whose kind I have not worn? I (now a woman) , I a man, a stripling, and a lad; I was the gymnasium's flower, I was the pride of the oiled wrestlers: my gates, my friendly threshold, were crowded, my home was decked with floral coronals, when I was wont to leave my couch at sunrise. Now shall I live a ministrant of gods and slave to Cybebe? ”