by Catullus
vale puella, iam Catullus obdurat,
nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam.
at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.
scelesta, vae te, quae tibi manet vita?
quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella?
quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?
quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?
at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.
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. ad Veranium
Verani, omnibus e meis amicis
antistans mihi milibus trecentis,
venistine domum ad tuos penates
fratresque unanimos anumque matrem?
venisti. o mihi nuntii beati!
visam te incolumem audiamque Hiberum
narrantem loca, facta nationes,
ut mos est tuus, applicansque collum
iucundum os oculosque suaviabor.
o quantum est hominum beatiorum,
quid me laetius est beatiusve?
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. ad Varum
Varus me meus ad suos amores
visum duxerat e foro otiosum,
scortillum, ut mihi tum repente visum est,
non sane illepidum neque invenustum,
huc ut venimus, incidere nobis
sermones varii, in quibus, quid esset
iam Bithynia, quo modo se haberet,
et quonam mihi profuisset aere.
respondi id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis
nec praetoribus esse nec cohorti,
cur quisquam caput unctius referret,
praesertim quibus esset irrumator
praetor, nec faceret pili cohortem.
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.
‘at certe tamen,’ inquiunt ‘quod illic
natum dicitur esse, comparasti
ad lecticam homines.’ ego, ut puellae
unum me facerem beatiorem,
‘non’ inquam ‘mihi tam fuit maligne
ut, provincia quod mala incidisset,
non possem octo homines parare rectos.’
at mi nullus erat nec hic neque illic
fractum qui veteris pedem grabati
in collo sibi collocare posset.
hic illa, ut decuit cinaediorem,
‘quaeso’ inquit ‘mihi, mi Catulle, paulum
istos commoda: nam volo ad Serapim
deferri.’
“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 enough 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.”
‘mane’ inquii puellae,
‘istud quod modo dixeram me habere,
fugit me ratio: meus sodalis —
Cinna est Gaius — is sibi paravit.
verum, utrum illius an mei, quid ad me?
utor tam bene quam mihi pararim.
sed tu insulsa male et molesta vivis,
per quam non licet esse neglegentem.’
“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. ad Furium et Aurelium
Furi et Aureli comites Catulli,
sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,
litus ut longe resonante Eoa
tunditur unda,
sive in Hyrcanos Arabesve molles,
seu Sagas sagittiferosve Parthos,
sive quae septemgeminus colorat
aequora Nilus,
sive trans altas gradietur Alpes,
Caesaris visens monimenta magni,
Gallicum Rhenum horribile aequor ulti-
mosque Britannos,
omnia haec, quaecumque feret voluntas
caelitum, temptare simul parati,
pauca nuntiate meae puellae
non bona dicta.
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.
cum suis vivat valeatque moechis,
quos simul complexa tenet trecentos,
nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium
ilia rumpens;
nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,
qui illius culpa cecidit velut prati
ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam
tactus aratro est.
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. ad Matrucinum Asinium
Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
non belle uteris: in ioco atque vino
tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
hoc salsum esse putas? fugit te, inepte:
quamvis sordida res et invenusta est.
non credis mihi? crede Pollioni
fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
mutari velit: est enim leporum
differtus puer ac facetiarum.
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.
quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos
exspecta, aut mihi linteum remitte,
quod me non movet aestimatione,
verum est mnemosynum mei sodalis.
nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis
miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus
et Veranius: haec amem necesse est
ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.
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?
XIII. ad Fabullum
Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me
paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus,
si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam
cenam, non sine candida puella
et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.
haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster,
cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli
plenus sacculus est aranearum.
XIII
You shall have a good dinner at my house, Fabullus, in a few days, please the gods, if you bring with you a good dinner and plenty of it, not forgetting a pretty girl and wine and wit and all kinds of laughter. If, I say, you bring all this, my charming friend, you shall have a good dinner; for the purse of your Catullus is full of cobwebs.
sed contra accipies meros amores
seu quid suavius elegantiusve est:
nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae
donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque,
quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis,
totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.
But on the other hand you shall have from me love’s very essence, or what is sweeter or more delicious than love, if sweeter there be; for I will give you some perfume which the Venuses and Loves gave to my lady; and when you snuff its fragrance, you will pray the gods to make you, Fabullus, nothing but nose.
XIV. ad Calvum poetam
Ni te plus oculis meis amarem,
iucundissime Calve, munere isto
odissem te odio Vatiniano:
nam quid feci ego quidve sum locutus,
cur me tot male perderes poetis?
isti di mala multa dent clienti,
qui tantum tibi misit impiorum.
XIV
IF I did not love you more than my own eyes, my dearest Calvus, I should hate you, as we all hate Vatinius, because of this gift of yours; for what have I done, or what have I said, that you should bring destruction upon me with all these poets? May the gods send down all their plagues upon that client of yours who sent you such a set of sinners.
quod si, ut suspicor, hoc novum ac repertum
munus dat tibi Sulla litterator,
non est mi male, sed bene ac beate,
quod non dispereunt tui labores.
di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum!
But if, as I suspect, this new and choice present is given you by Sulla the schoolmaster, then I am not vexed, but well and happy, because your labours are not lost. Great gods! what a portentous and accursed book!
quem tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum
misti, continuo ut die periret,
Saturnalibus, optimo dierum!
non non hoc tibi, false, sic abibit.
And this was the book which you sent your Catullus, to kill him off at once on the very day of the Saturnalia, best of days. No, no, you rogue, this shall not end so for you.
nam si luxerit ad librariorum
curram scrinia, Caesios, Aquinos,
Suffenum, omnia colligam venena.
ac te his suppliciis remunerabor.
vos hinc interea valete abite
illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis,
saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae.
For let the morning only come — I will be off to the shelves of the booksellers, sweep together Caesii, Aquini, Suffenus, and all such poisonous stuff, and with these penalties will I pay you back for your gift. You poets, meantime, farewell, away with you, back to that ill place whence you brought your cursed feet, you burdens of our age, you worst of poets.
XIVb.
Si qui forte mearum ineptiarum
lectores eritis manusque vestras
non horrebitis admovere nobis,
XIVB (a fragment)
O MY readers — if there be any who will read my nonsense, and not shrink from touching me with your hands...
XV. ad Aurelium
Commendo tibi me ac meos amores,
Aureli. veniam peto pudentem,
ut, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti,
quod castum expeteres et integellum,
conserves puerum mihi pudice,
non dico a populo — nihil veremur
istos, qui in platea modo huc modo illuc
in re praetereunt sua occupati —
verum a te metuo tuoque pene
infesto pueris bonis malisque.
XV
To you, Aurelius, I entrust my all, even my loved one, and I ask a favour of you, a modest favour. If you have ever with all your soul desired to keep anything pure and free from stain, then guard my darling now in safety — I don’t mean from the vulgar throng; I have no fear of such as pass to and fro our streets absorbed in their own business. ’Tis you I fear, you and your passions, so fatal to the young, both good and bad alike.
quem tu qua lubet, ut lubet moveto
quantum vis, ubi erit foris paratum:
hunc unum excipio, ut puto, pudenter.
quod si te mala mens furorque vecors
in tantam impulerit, sceleste, culpam,
ut nostrum insidiis caput lacessas.
a tum te miserum malique fati!
quem attractis pedibus patente porta
percurrent raphanique mugilesque.
Give those passions play where and how you please, ever ready for indulgence when you walk abroad. This one boy I would have you spare: methinks ’tis a modest request. And if infatuate frenzy drive you to the heinous crime of treason against me, ah! then I pity you for your sad fate. For before the city’s gaze with fettered, feet you shall be tortured as cruelly as an adulterer.
XVI. ad Aurelium et Furium
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est;
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici,
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
vos, quod milia multa basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.
XVI
I will make you my boys and bone you, sexually submissive Aurelius and Furius the sodomite, who think, because my verses are voluptuous, that I am not chaste enough. For it is right that a poet be chaste himself; it is not at all necessary for his verses to be. My verses, in a word, may have a spice and charm, if they are voluptuous and not chaste enough, and because they are sexy and can arouse — I do not say boys — but this hairy pair who can’t shake their stiffies. Because you have read of many thousand kisses, do you think me less a man? I will make you my boys and bone you!
XVII.
O Colonia, quae cupis ponte ludere longo,
et salire paratum habes, sed vereris inepta
crura ponticuli axulis stantis in redivivis,
ne supinus eat cavaque in palude recumbat:
sic tibi bonus ex tua pons libidine fiat,
in quo vel Salisubsali sacra suscipiantur,
munus hoc mihi maximi da, Colonia, risus.
quend
am municipem meum de tuo volo ponte
ire praecipitem in lutum per caputque pedesque,
verum totius ut lacus putidaeque paludis
lividissima maximeque est profunda vorago.
insulsissimus est homo, nec sapit pueri instar
bimuli tremula patris dormientis in ulna.
XVII
O COLONIA, you who wish to have a long bridge on which to celebrate your games, and are quite ready to dance, but fear the ill-jointed legs of your little bridge, standing as it does on old posts done up again, lest it should fall sprawling and sink down in the depths of the mire; — may you have a good bridge made for you according to your desire, one in which the rites of Salisubsilus himself may be undertaken, on condition that you grant me this gift, Colonia, to make me laugh my loudest. There, is a townsman of mine whom I wish to go headlong from your bridge over head and heels into the mud; — only let it be where is the blackest and deepest pit of the whole bog with its stinking morass. The fellow is a perfect blockhead, and has not as much sense as a little baby two years old sleeping in the rocking arms of his father.
cui cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella
et puella tenellulo delicatior haedo,
adservanda nigerrimis diligentius uuis,
ludere hanc sinit ut lubet, nec pili facit uni,
nec se subleuat ex sua parte, sed velut alnus
in fossa Liguri iacet suppernata securi,
tantundem omnia sentiens quam si nulla sit usquam;
talis iste meus stupor nil videt, nihil audit,
ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit.
nunc eum volo de tuo ponte mittere pronum,
si pote stolidum repente excitare veternum,
et supinum animum in gravi derelinquere caeno,
ferream ut soleam tenaci in voragine mula.
He has for wife a girl in the freshest flower of youth; — a girl too; more exquisite than a tender kidling; one who ought to be guarded more diligently than ripest grapes — and he lets her play as she will; and does not care one straw, and for his part does not stir himself, but lies like an alder in a ditch hamstrung by a Ligurian axe, with just as much perception of everything as if it did not exist anywhere at all. Like this, my booby sees nothing, hears nothing; what he himself is, whether he is or is not, he does not know so much as this. He it is whom I want now to send head foremost from your bridge to try whether he can all in a moment wake up his stupid lethargy, and leave his sluggish mind there in the nasty sludge, as a mule leaves her iron shoe in the sticky mire.
