Catullus poems
Read these in conjunction with Books IV and VI of The Aeneid
The translations can be quite vigorous and the subject matter and attitude of Catullus ranges widely;
Catullus
84?-54? B.C.
Selected lyrics
#1
Lesbia, let us live only for loving,
and let us value at a single penny,
all the lose flap of senile busybodies!
Suns when they set are capable of risings,
but the setting of our own brief light
night is one sleep from which we never waken.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
another thousand next, another hundred,
a thousand without pause & and then a hundred,
until when we have run up our thousands
we will call bankrupt, hiding our assets
from ourselves & from any who would harm us,
knowing the volume of our trade in kisses
#2
Sparrow, you darling pet of my beloved,
which she caresses, presses to her body
or teases with the tip of one sly finger
until you peck at it in tiny outrage!
--for there are times when my desired, shining
lady is moved to turn to you in comfort,
to find (as I imagine) ease for ardor,
solace, a little respite from her sorrow---
if only I could play with you as she does,
and be relieved of my tormenting passion.
#3
Many find Quintia stunning. I find her attractive:
tall, “regal,” fair in complexion--- these points are granted.
But stunning? No, I deny it: the woman is scarcely venerious,
there’s no spice at all in the length of her body!
Now Lesbia is stunning, for Lesbia’s beauty is total:
and by that sum all other women are diminished.
#4
Lesbia hurls abuse at me in front of her husband:
that fatuous person finds it highly amusing!
Nothing gets through to you, jackass--- for silence would signal
that she’d been cured of me, but her barking &bitching
show that not only have I not been forgotten,
---but that this burns her: and so she rants & rages.
#5
My woman says there is no one whom she’d rather marry
than me, not even Jupiter, if he came courting.
That’s what she says--- but what a woman says to a passionate lover
ought to be scribbled on wind, on running water.
#6
I hate &love. And if you should ask how I can do both,
I couldn’t say; but I feel it and it shivers me.
#7
To such a state have I been brought by your mischief, my Lesbia,
and so completely ruined by my devotion,
that I couldn’t think kindly of you if you did the best only,
nor cease to love, even if you should do--- everything.
#8
If ever something which someone with no expectation
desired should happen, we are rightly delighted!
And so this news is delightful--- it’s dearer than gold is:
you have returned to me, Lesbia, my desired!
Desired, yet never expected--- but you have come back
to me! A holiday, a day of celebration!
What living man is luckier than I am? Or able
to say that anything could possibly be better?
#9
Cry out lamenting, Venuses & Cupids,
and mortal men endowed with Love’s refinement:
the sparrow of my lady lives no longer!
Sparrow, the darling pet of my beloved,
that was more precious to her than her eyes were;
it was her little honey, and it knew her
as well as any girl knows her own mother;
it would not ever leave my lady’s bosom
but leapt up, fluttering from yon to hither,
chirruping always only to its mistress.
it now flits off on its way, goes, gloom-laden
down to where--- word is--- there is no returning.
Damn you, damned shades of Orcus that devour
all mortal loveliness, for such a lovely
sparrow it was you’ve stolen from my keeping!
O hideous deed! O poor little sparrow!
It’s your great fault that my lady goes weeping,
reddening, ruining her eyes from sorrow.
#10
I’ll fuck the pair of you as you prefer it,
oral Aurelius, anal Furius,
who read my verses but misread their author:
you think that I’m effeminate, since they are!
Purity’s proper in the godly poet,
but it’s unnecessary in his verses,
which really should be saucy & seductive,
even salacious in a girlish manner
and capable of generating passion
not just in boys, but in old men who’ve noticed
getting hard-ons has been getting harder!
But you, because my poems beg for kisses,
thousands of kisses, you think I’m a fairy!
I’ll fuck the pair of you as you prefer it.
#11
You will dine well with me, my dear Fabullus,
in a few days or so, the gods permitting.
---Provided you provide the many-splendored
feast, and invite your fair-complected lady,
your wine, your salt & all the entertainment!
Which is to say, my dear, if you bring dinner
you will dine well, for these days your Catullus
finds that his purse is only full of cobwebs,
But in return, you’ll have from me love’s Essence,
---or what (if anything) is more delicious;
I’ll let you sniff a certain charming fragrance
which Venuses and Cupids gave my lady;
one whiff of it, Fabullus, and you’ll beg the
gods to transform you into a nose, completely!