by Catullus
The Complete Works of
CATULLUS
(c. 84 – 54 BC)
Contents
The Translations
INTRODUCTION TO THE POETRY OF CATULLUS
PROSE TRANSLATION
VERSE TRANSLATION
The Latin Text
CONTENTS OF THE LATIN TEXT
The Dual Text
DUAL LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT
The Biographies
INTRODUCTION TO CATULLUS by Francis Warre Cornish
CATULLUS by J. W. Mackail
© Delphi Classics 2015
Version 1
The Complete Works of
CATULLUS
By Delphi Classics, 2015
The Translations
Verona, Italy — Catullus’ birthplace
The amphitheatre in Verona
INTRODUCTION TO THE POETRY OF CATULLUS
Catullus’ poetry has come down to us in an anthology of 116 carmina, which can be divided into three parts: sixty short polymetra in varying meters, eight longer poems and forty-eight epigrams. There is no scholarly consensus on whether Catullus arranged this order of the poems. The longer poems differ from the polymetra and the epigrams not only in length, but also in their subjects. There are seven hymns and one mini-epic, or epyllion, a highly prized form of narrative poetry. Catullus’ polymetra and the epigrams can be divided into four major thematic groups:
poems addressed to and concerning the poet’s friends
erotic poems, including the famous poems addressed to the poet’s beloved “Lesbia”, a pseudonym for a married lover
invectives: often offensive and sometimes obscene, targeted at friends-turned-traitors, rivals of Lesbia, well-known poets, politicians (including Julius Caesar) and rhetors, (including Cicero)
condolences: comforting and lamenting friends and loved ones
These poems vividly bring to life the daily routine of Catullus and his friends, who live their lives withdrawn from politics, caught up in their various love affairs and literary pursuits. Above all other qualities, Catullus seems to have valued venustas, or charm, in his acquaintances, a theme that he explores in a number of his poems. The ancient Roman concept of virtus (virtue that had to be proved by a political or military career), which the statesman Cicero suggested as the solution to the societal problems of the late Republic, appears to mean little to Catullus and his friends.
Catullus’ poetry was influenced by the innovative poetry of the Hellenistic Age, especially by the works of Callimachus and the Alexandrian school, which had developed a new style of poetry turning away from the classical epic poetry in the tradition of Homer. Cicero coined the term neoteroi or ‘moderns’ for such poets, due to their casting off the heroic model handed down from epic poets such as Ennius. Neoteric poets were an avant-garde movement of Greek and Latin poets propagated a new style of Greek poetry, deliberately turning away from the classical Homeric epic poetry. Poets such as Catullus and Callimachus were not interested in composing poems of the feats of ancient heroes and gods in the epic meters of old; instead they wished to focus on small-scale personal themes, often on events of everyday life. Although these poems may appear superficial, they are accomplished works of art with complex metrical meters. Catullus described his work as expolitum, or polished, to illustrate that the language he used was carefully and artistically composed.
He was also an admirer of the Greek Sappho, a female poet of the seventh century BC, and Catullus is the source for much of what we know or infer about her life and works. Catullus 51 follows Sappho 31 so closely that some critics believe the later poem to be a direct translation of the earlier poem, while61 and 62 are certainly inspired by and perhaps translated directly from lost works of Sappho. Both of the latter are epithalamia, a form of laudatory or erotic wedding-poetry that Sappho had been famous for, but that had dropped out of fashion in the intervening centuries. Catullus twice used a meter that Sappho developed, called the Sapphic strophe in poems 11 and 51.
Catullus was greatly influenced by stories from Greek myth and longer poems — 63, 64, 65, 66, and 68 — allude to famous tales, including the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the departure of the Argonauts, Theseus and the Minotaur, Ariadne’s abandonment, Tereus and Procne, as well as Protesilaus and Laodamia.
Catullus adopted a variety of meters in his poetry, though his most famous was the hendecasyllabic meter, employing a line of eleven syllables (hence the name: hendec meaning eleven in Greek) with a choriamb of a long syllable followed by two short syllables and another long syllable, in the heart of the line. Another frequently used meter by the poet is the elegiac couplet, a common form in love poetry, where each couplet consists of a hexameter verse, followed by a pentameter verse.
Renowned for its vivid depiction of the lover’s emotions, Catullus’ poetry is famous for its explicit nature, as well as for the poet’s amusing sense of humour, as he communicates and socialises with his friends and patrons in Late Republic Rome. Catullus is the predecessor in Roman Elegy for poets such as Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid. His focus in his poetry is on himself, the male lover, as his obsession develops for Lesbia, though she is in essence only an object to him. In his composition, the male lover is the important character and Lesbia is part of his theatrical passion. It is important to note Catullus came at the beginning of this genre, so his work is much different than his predecessors. Ovid is heavily influenced by Catullus; however, he switches the focus of his writing to the concept of love and Amor, rather than himself or the male lover.
‘Catullus reading to his friends’ by Stepan Bakalovich, 1885
‘Catullus at Lesbia’s’ by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1865
The frontispiece of John Nott’s ‘The poems of Caius Valerius Catullus’, 1795
PROSE TRANSLATION
Translated by Francis Warre Cornish
CONTENTS
PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF CATULLUS
I
II
IIA (a fragment)
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XIVA (a fragment)
XV
XVI (a fragment)
XVII
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
XLII
XLIII
XLIV
XLV
XLVI
XLVII
XLVIII
XLIX
L
LIA
LIB (a fragment)
LII
LIII
LIV
LIVB (a fragment)
LV
LVI
LVII
LVIII
LIX
LX
LXI
LXII
LXIII
LXIV
LXV
LXVI
LXVII
LXVIII
LXVIIIA
LXIX
LXX
LXXI
LXXII
LXXIII
LXXIV
LXXV
LXXVI
LXXVII
LXXVIII
LXXIX
LXXX
<
br /> LXXXI
LXXXII
LXXXIII
LXXXIV
LXXXV
LXXXVI
LXXXVII
LXXXVIII
LXXXIX
XC
XCI
XCII
XCIII
XCIV
XCV
XCVI
XCVII
XCVIII
XCIX
C
CI
CII
CIII
CIV
CV
CVI
CVII
CVIII
CIX
CX
CXI
CXII
CXIII
CXIV
CXV
CXVI
FRAGMENTS
PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF CATULLUS
V. Codex Veronensis, from which all others (except T) are derived; no longer extant.
E. Codex Sangermanensis or Parisiensis; in the National Library, Paris.
O. Codex Oxoniensis, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
D. Codex Datanus, at Berlin.
M. Codex Vendus, in the Library of St. Mark at Venice.
R. Codex Romanus, in the Vatican Library, Rome. T. Codex Thuaneus, in the National Library, Paris; contains only Carm. LXH.
I
To whom am I to present my pretty new book, freshly smoothed off with dry pumice-stone? To you, Cornelius: for you used to think that my trifles were worth something, long ago, when you took courage, you alone of Italians, to set forth the whole history of the world in three volumes, learned volumes, by Jupiter, and laboriously wrought. So take and keep for your own this little book, such as it is, and whatever it is worth; and may it, O Virgin my patroness, live and last for more than one century.
II
SPARROW, my lady’s pet, with whom she often plays whilst she holds you in her lap, or gives you her finger-tip to peck and provokes you to bite sharply, whenever she, the bright-shining lady of my love, has a mind for some sweet pretty play, in hope, as I think, that when the sharper smart of love abates, she may find some small relief from her pain — ah, might I but play with you as she does, and lighten the gloomy cares of my heart!
IIA (a fragment)
THIS is as welcome to me as to the swift maiden was (they say) the golden apple, which loosed her girdle too long tied.
III
MOURN, ye Graces and Loves, and all you whom the Graces love. My lady’s sparrow is dead, the sparrow my lady’s pet, whom she loved more than her very eyes; for honey-sweet he was, and knew his mistress as well as a girl knows her own mother. Nor would he stir from her lap, but hopping now here, now there, would still chirp to his mistress alone. Now he goes along the dark road, thither whence they say no one returns. But curse upon you, cursed shades of Orcus, which devour all pretty things! My pretty sparrow, you have taken him away. Ah, cruel! Ah, poor little bird! All because of you my lady’s darling eyes are heavy and red with weeping.
IV
THE pinnace you see, my friends, says that she was once the fleetest of ships, and that there was never any timber afloat whose speed she was not able to pass, whether she would fly with oar-blades or with canvas. And this (says she) the shore of the blustering Adriatic does not deny, nor the Cyclad isles and famous Rhodes and the wild Thracian Propontis, nor the gloomy gulf of Pontus, where she who was afterwards a pinnace was formerly a leafy forest: for on the height of Cytorus she often rustled with talking leaves. Pontic Amastris and Cytorus green with box, my galley says that all this was and is well known to thee; she says that from her earliest birth time she stood on thy summit, in thy waters first dipped her blades, and thence over so many riotous seas brought her owner, whether the breeze from left or right invited, or Jove came down astern on both sheets at once; and that no vows to the gods of the shore were made by her all the time she was sailing from the furthest sea even to this limpid lake.
But these things are past and gone; now she rests in old age and retired leisure, and dedicates herself to thee, twin Castor, and to thee, Castor’s twin.
V
LET us live, my Lesbia, and love, and value at one farthing all the talk of crabbed old men.
Suns may set and rise again. For us, when the short light has once set, remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we have made up many thousands, we will confuse our counting, that we may not know the reckoning, nor any malicious person blight them with evil eye, when he knows that our kisses are so many.
VI
FLAVIUS, if it were not that your mistress is rustic and unrefined, you would want to speak of her to your Catullus; you would not be able to help it. But (I am sure) you are in love with some unhealthy-looking wench; and you are ashamed to confess it. But though you are silent, the garlands and perfumes about the bed, and the bed itself, show that you do not sleep alone. Well then, whatever you have to tell, good or bad, let me know it. I wish to call you and your love to the skies by the power of my merry verse.
VII
You ask how many kissings of you, Lesbia, are enough for me and more than enough. As great as is the number of the Libyan sand that lies on silphium-bearing Cyrene, between the oracle of sultry Jove and the sacred tomb of old Battus; or as many as are the stars, when night is silent, that see the stolen loves of men, — to kiss you with so many kisses, Lesbia, is enough and more than enough for your mad Catullus; kisses, which neither curious eyes shall count up nor an evil tongue bewitch.
VIII
POOR Catullus, ’tis time you should cease your folly, and account as lost what you see is lost. Once the days shone bright on you, when you used to go so often where my mistress led, she who was loved by me as none will ever be loved. There and then were given us those joys, so many, so merry, which you desired nor did my lady not desire. Bright to you, truly, shone the days. Now she desires no more — no more should you desire, poor madman, nor follow her who flies, nor live in misery, but with resolved mind endure, be firm. Farewell, my mistress; now Catullus is firm; he will not seek you nor ask you against your will. But you will be sorry, when your nightly favours are no more desired. Ah, poor wretch! what life is left for you? Who now will visit you? to whom will you seem fair? whom now will you love? by whose name will you be called? whom will you kiss? whose lips will you bite? But you, Catullus, be resolved and firm.
IX
VERANIUS, preferred by me to three hundred thousand out of all the number of my friends, have you then come home to your own hearth and your affectionate brothers and your aged mother? You have indeed; O joyful news to me! I shall look upon you safe returned, and hear you telling of the country, the history, the various tribes of the Hiberians, as is your way, and drawing your neck nearer to me I shall kiss your beloved mouth and eyes. Oh, of aid men more blest than others, who is more glad, more blest than I?
X
MY dear Varus had taken me from the Forum, where I was idling, to pay a visit to his mistress, a little thing, as I thought at a first glance, not at all amiss in manner or looks. When we got there, we fell talking of this and that, and amongst other things, what sort of place Bithynia was now, how its affairs were going on, whether had made any money there. I answered (what was true) that as things now are, neither praetors themselves nor their staff can find any means of coming back fatter than they went, especially as they had such a beast for a praetor, a fellow who did not care a straw for his subalterns.
“Well, but at any rate,” say they, “you must have got some bearers for your chair. I am told that is the country where they are bred.” I, to make myself out to the girl as specially fortunate above the rest, say, “Things did not go so unkindly with me — bad as the province was which fell to my chance — as to prevent my getting eight straight-backed fellows.” Now I had not a single one, here or there, strong eno
ugh to hoist on his shoulder the broken leg of an old sofa. Says she (just like her shamelessness), “I beg you, my dear Catullus, do lend me those slaves you speak of for a moment; I want just now to be taken to the temple of Serapis.”
“Stop,” say I to the girl, “what I said just now about those slaves, that they were mine, it was a slip; there is a friend of mine — Gaius Cinna it is — ; it was he who bought them for his own use; but it is all one to me whether they are his or mine, I use them just as if I had bought them for myself: but you are a stupid, tiresome thing, who will never let one be off one’s guard.”
XI
FURIUS and Aurelius, who will be Catullus’s fellow-travellers, whether he makes his way even to distant India, where the shore is beaten by the far-resounding eastern wave, or to Hyrcania and soft Arabia, or to the Sacae and archer Parthians, or those plains which sevenfold Nile dyes with his flood, or whether he will tramp across the high Alps, to visit the memorials of great Caesar, the Gaulish Rhine, the formidable Britons, remotest of men — O my friends, ready as you are to encounter all these risks with me, whatever the will of the gods above shall bring, take a little message, not a kind message, to my mistress. Bid her live and be happy with her paramours, three hundred of whom she holds at once in her embrace, not loving one of them really, but again and again draining the strength of all. And let her not look to find my love, as before; my love, which by her fault has dropped, like a flower on the meadow’s edge, when it has been touched by the plough passing by.
XII
ASINIUS MARRUCINUS, you do not make a pretty use of your left hand when we are laughing and drinking; you take away the napkins of people who are off their guard. Do you think this a good joke? You are mistaken, you silly fellow; it is ever so ill-bred, and in the worst taste. You don’t believe me? believe your brother Pollio, who would be glad to have your thefts redeemed at the cost of a whole talent; for he is a boy who is a master of all that is witty and amusing. So now either look out for three hundred hendecasyllables, or send me back my napkin — which does not concern me for what it is worth, but because it is a keepsake from my old friend; for Fabullus and Veranius sent me some Saetaban napkins as a present from Hiberia. How can I help being fond of these, as I am of my dear Veranius and Fabullus?
