Complete Works of Catullus

by Catullus

dicta lumine Luna.

  tu cursu, dea, menstruo

  metiens iter annuum,

  rustica agricolae bonis

  tecta frugibus exples.

  sis quocumque tibi placet

  sancta nomine, Romulique,

  antique ut solita es, bona

  sospites ope gentem.

  thou art called Juno Lucina by mothers in pains of travail, thou art called mighty Trivia and Moon with counterfeit light. Thou, goddess, measurest out by monthly course the circuit of the year, thou fillest full with goodly fruits the rustic home of the husbandman. Be thou hallowed by whatever name thou wilt; and as of old thou wert wont, with good help keep safe the race of Romulus.

  XXXV. ad Caecilium iubet libello loqui

  Poetae tenero, meo sodali,

  velim Caecilio, papyre, dicas

  Veronam veniat, Noui relinquens

  Comi moenia Lariumque litus.

  nam quasdam volo cogitationes

  amici accipiat sui meique.

  quare, si sapiet, viam vorabit,

  quamvis candida milies puella

  euntem revocet, manusque collo

  ambas iniciens roget morari.

  XXXV

  I ASK you, papyrus page, to tell the gentle poet, my friend Caecilius, to come to Verona, leaving the walls of Novum Comum and the shore of Larius: for I wish him to receive certain thoughts of a friend of his and mine. Wherefore if he is wise he will devour the way with haste, though his fair lady should call him back a thousand times, and throwing both her arms round his neck beg him to delay.

  quae nunc, si mihi vera nuntiantur,

  illum deperit impotente amore.

  nam quo tempore legit incohatam

  Dindymi dominam, ex eo misellae

  ignes interiorem edunt medullam.

  ignosco tibi, Sapphica puella

  musa doctior; est enim venuste

  Magna Caecilio incohata Mater.

  She now, if a true tale is brought to me, dotes on him with passionate love. For since she read the beginning of his “Lady of Dindymus,” ever since then, poor girl, the fires have been wasting her inmost marrow. I can feel for you, maiden more scholarly than the Sapphic Muse; for Caecilius has indeed made a lovely beginning to his “Magna Mater.”

  XXXVI. ad Lusi cacatam

  Annales Volusi, cacata carta,

  votum soluite pro mea puella.

  nam sanctae Veneri Cupidinique

  vovit, si sibi restitutus essem

  desissemque truces vibrare iambos,

  electissima pessimi poetae

  scripta tardipedi deo daturam

  infelicibus ustulanda lignis.

  et hoc pessima se puella vidit

  iocose lepide vovere divis.

  XXXVI

  CHRONICLE of Volusius, filthy waste-paper, discharge a vow on behalf of my love; for she vowed to holy Venus and to Cupid that if I were restored to her love and ceased to dart fierce iambics; she would give to the lame-footed god the choicest writings of the worst of poets, to be burnt with wood from some accursed tree.: and my lady perceived that these were the “worst poems” that she was vowing to the merry gods in pleasant sport.

  nunc o caeruleo creata ponto,

  quae sanctum Idalium Vriosque apertos

  quaeque Ancona Cnidumque harundinosam

  colis quaeque Amathunta quaeque Golgos

  quaeque Durrachium Hadriae tabernam,

  acceptum face redditumque votum,

  si non illepidum neque invenustum est.

  at vos interea venite in ignem,

  pleni ruris et inficetiarum.

  annales Volusi, cacata carta.

  Now therefore, O thou whom the blue sea bare, who inhabitest holy Idalium and open Urii, who dwellest in Ancona and reedy Cnidus and in Amathus and in Golgi, and in Dyrrhachium the meeting-place of all Hadria, record the vow as received and duly paid, so surely as it is not out of taste nor inelegant. Meantime come you here into the fire, you bundle of rusticity and clumsiness, chronicle of Volusius, filthy waste-paper.

  XXXVII. ad contubernales et Egnatium

  Salax taberna vosque contubernales,

  a pilleatis nona fratribus pila,

  solis putatis esse mentulas vobis,

  solis licere, quidquid est puellarum,

  confutuere et putare ceteros hircos?

  an, continenter quod sedetis insulsi

  centum an ducenti, non putatis ausurum

  me una ducentos irrumare sessores?

  atqui putate: namque totius vobis

  frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam.

  XXXVII

  GALLANT pot-house, and you brothers in the service, at the ninth pillar from the temple of the Brothers in the hats (Castor and Pollux), are you the only men, think you? the only ones who have leave to buss all the girls, while you think every one else a goat? Or if you sit in a line, five score or ten maybe, witless all, think you that I cannot settle ten score while they sit? Yet you may think so: for I’ll scribble scorpions all over the pot-house front.

  puella nam mi, quae meo sinu fugit,

  amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla,

  pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata,

  consedit istic. hanc boni beatique

  omnes amatis, et quidem, quod indignum est,

  omnes pusilli et semitarii moechi;

  tu praeter omnes une de capillatis,

  cuniculosae Celtiberiae fili,

  Egnati. opaca quem bonum facit barba

  et dens Hibera defricatus urina.

  My girl, who has left my arms, though loved as none ever shall be loved, has taken up her abode there. She is dear to all you men of rank and fortune — indeed, to her shame, all the petty lechers that haunt the byways; to you above all, paragon of longhaired dandies, Egnatius, son of rabbity Celtiberia, made a gentleman by a bushy beard and teeth brushed with your unsavoury Spanish wash.

  XXXVIII. ad Cornificium

  Malest, Cornifici, tuo Catullo

  malest, me hercule, et laboriose,

  et magis magis in dies et horas.

  quem tu, quod minimum facillimumque est,

  qua solatus es allocutione?

  irascor tibi. sic meos amores?

  paulum quid lubet allocutionis,

  maestius lacrimis Simonideis.

  XXXVIII

  YOUR Catullus is ill at ease, Cornificius, ill and in distress, and that more and more daily and hourly. And you, though that is the lightest and easiest task, have you said one word to console him? I am getting angry with you — what, treat my love so? Give me only some little word of comfort, pathetic as the tears of Simonides!

  XXXIX. ad Egnatium

  Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes,

  renidet usque quaque. si ad rei ventum est

  subsellium, cum orator excitat fletum,

  renidet ille; si ad pii rogum fili

  lugetur, orba cum flet unicum mater,

  renidet ille. quidquid est, ubicumque est,

  quodcumque agit, renidet: hunc habet morbum,

  neque elegantem, ut arbitror, neque urbanum.

  quare monendum est te mihi, bone Egnati.

  XXXIX

  EGNATIUS, because he has white teeth, is everlastingly smiling. If people come to the prisoner’s bench, when the counsel for the defence is making every one cry, he smiles: if they are mourning at the funeral of a dear son, when the bereaved mother is weeping for her only boy, he smiles: whatever it is, wherever he is, whatever he is doing, he smiles: it is a malady he has, neither an elegant one as I think, nor in good taste. So I must give you a bit of advice, my good Egnatius.

  si urbanus esses aut Sabinus aut Tiburs

  aut pinguis Vmber aut obesus Etruscus

  aut Lanuvinus ater atque dentatus

  aut Transpadanus, ut meos quoque attingam,

  aut quilubet, qui puriter lavit dentes,

  tamen renidere usque quaque te nollem:

  nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.

  nunc Celtiber es
: Celtiberia in terra,

  quod quisque minxit, hoc sibi solet mane

  dentem atque russam defricare gingivam,

  ut quo iste vester expolitior dens est,

  hoc te amplius bibisse praedicet loti.

  If you were a Roman or a Sabine or a Tiburtine or a pig of an Umbrian or a plump Etruscan, or a black and tusky Lanuvian, or a Transpadane (to touch on my own people too), or anybody else who washes his teeth with clean water, still I should not like you to be smiling everlastingly; for there is nothing more silly than a silly laugh. As it is, you are a Celtiberian; now in the Celtiberian country the natives rub their teeth and red gums, we know how; so that the cleaner your teeth are, the dirtier

  XL. ad Ravidum

  Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Ravide,

  agit praecipitem in meos iambos?

  quis deus tibi non bene advocatus

  vecordem parat excitare rixam?

  an ut pervenias in ora vulgi?

  quid vis? qualubet esse notus optas?

  eris, quandoquidem meos amores

  cum longa voluisti amare poena.

  XL

  WHAT infatuation, my poor Ravidus, drives you headlong in the way of my iambics? What god invoked by you amiss is going to stir up a senseless quarrel? Is it that you wish to be talked about? What do you want? would you be known, no matter how? So you shall, since you have chosen to love my lady, — and long shall you rue it.

  XLI. ad Ameanam

  Ameana puella defututa

  tota milia me decem poposcit,

  ista turpiculo puella naso,

  decoctoris amica Formiani.

  propinqui, quibus est puella curae,

  amicos medicosque convocate:

  non est sana puella, nec rogare

  qualis sit solet aes imaginosum.

  XLI

  AMEANA, that worn-out jade, asked me for a round ten thousand; that girl with the ugly snub nose, the mistress of the bankrupt of Formiae. You her relations, who have the charge of the girl, call together friends and doctors: she is not right in her mind, and never asks the looking-glass what she is like.

  XLII. ad hendecasyllabos

  Adeste, hendecasyllabi, quot estis

  omnes undique, quotquot estis omnes.

  iocum me putat esse moecha turpis,

  et negat mihi nostra reddituram

  pugillaria, si pati potestis.

  persequamur eam et reflagitemus.

  quae sit, quaeritis? illa, quam videtis

  turpe incedere, mimice ac moleste

  ridentem catuli ore Gallicani.

  circumsistite eam, et reflagitate,

  ‘moecha putida, redde codicillos,

  redde putida moecha, codicillos!’

  XLII

  HITHER from all sides, hendecasyllables, as many as there are of you, all of you as many as there are. An ugly drab thinks she may make fun of me, and says she will not give me back your tablets, if you can submit to that. Let us follow her, and demand them back again. You ask who she is? That one whom you see strutting with an ugly gait, grinning like a vulgar mountebank with the gape of a Cisalpine hound. Stand round her and call for them back again. “Dirty drab, give back the tablets, give back the tablets, dirty drab!”

  non assis facis? o lutum, lupanar,

  aut si perditius potes quid esse.

  sed non est tamen hoc satis putandum.

  quod si non aliud potest ruborem

  ferreo canis exprimamus ore.

  conclamate iterum altiore voce.

  ‘moecha putide, redde codicillos,

  redde, putida moecha, codicillos!’

  sed nil proficimus, nihil movetur.

  mutanda est ratio modusque vobis,

  siquid proficere amplius potestis:

  ‘pudica et proba, redde codicillos.’

  Don’t you care a penny for that? O filth, O beastliness! or anything else that I can call you worse still! But we must not think this enough. Well, if nothing else can do it, let us force a blush from the brazen face of the beast: call out again with louder voice, “Dirty drab, give back the tablets, give back the tablets, dirty drab!” We get nothing by that: she does not mind. You must change your plan and method, if you can do better so—” Maiden modest and chaste, give back the tablets.”

  XLIII. ad Ameanam

  Salve, nec minimo puella naso

  nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis

  nec longis digitis nec ore sicco

  nec sane nimis elegante lingua,

  decoctoris amica Formiani.

  ten provincia narrat esse bellam?

  tecum Lesbia nostra comparatur?

  o saeclum insapiens et infacetum!

  XLIII

  I GREET you, lady, you who neither have a tiny nose, nor a pretty foot, nor black eyes, nor long fingers, nor dry mouth, nor indeed a very refined tongue, you mistress of the bankrupt of Formiae. Is it you who are pretty, as the Province tells us? is it with you that our Lesbia is compared? Oh, this age! how tasteless and ill-bred it is!

  XLIV. ad Fundum

  O Funde noster seu Sabine seu Tiburs

  (nam te esse Tiburtem autumant, quibus non est

  cordi Catullum laedere; at quibus cordi est,

  quovis Sabinum pignore esse contendunt),

  sed seu Sabine sive verius Tiburs,

  fui libenter in tua suburbana

  villa, malamque pectore expuli tussim,

  non inmerenti quam mihi meus venter,

  dum sumptuosas appeto, dedit, cenas.

  nam, Sestianus dum volo esse conviva,

  orationem in Antium petitorem

  plenam veneni et pestilentiae legi.

  XLIV

  MY farm, whether Sabine or Tiburtine (for those, affirm that you are Tiburtine, who do not love to annoy Catullus, but those who do will wager anything that you are Sabine) — but at all events, whether you are Sabine or more rightly Tiburtine, I was glad to be in your retreat, ‘twixt country and town, and to clear my chest of the troublesome cough, which my greediness gave me (not undeservedly) whilst I was funning after costly feasts. I wanted to go to dinner with Sestius, and so I read a speech of his against the candidate Antius, full of poison and plague.

  hic me gravedo frigida et frequens tussis

  quassavit usque, dum in tuum sinum fugi,

  et me recuravi otioque et urtica.

  quare refectus maximas tibi grates

  ago, meum quod non es ulta peccatum.

  nec deprecor iam, si nefaria scripta

  Sesti recepso, quin gravedinem et tussim

  non mihi, sed ipsi Sestio ferat frigus,

  qui tunc vocat me, cum malum librum legi.

  Thereupon a shivering chill and a constant cough shook me to pieces, till at last I fled to your bosom, and set myself right again by a diet of laziness and nettle broth. So now, having recovered, I return you my best thanks because you did not punish my error. And henceforth, if I ever again take in hand the abominable writings of Sestius, I freely consent that the chill shall bring catarrh and cough, not upon me, but upon Sestius himself, for inviting me just when I have read a stupid book.

  XLV. ad Septimium

  Acmen Septimius suos amores

  tenens in gremio ‘mea’ inquit ‘Acme,

  ni te perdite amo atque amare porro

  omnes sum assidve paratus annos,

  quantum qui pote plurimum perire,

  solus in Libya Indiaque tosta

  caesio veniam obvius leoni.’

  hoc ut dixit, Amor sinistra ut ante

  dextra sternuit approbationem.

  XLV

  SEPTIMIUS, holding in his arms his darling Acme, says, “My Acme, if I do not love thee to desperation, and if I am not ready to go on loving thee continually through all my years as much and as distractedly as the most distracted of lovers, may I in Libya or sunburnt India meet a green-eyed lion alone.” As he said this, Love on the left, as before on the right, sneezed goodwill.

  at Acme leviter caput reflectens


  et dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos

  illo purpureo ore suaviata,

  ‘sic’ inquit ‘mea vita Septimille,

  huic uni domino usque serviamus,

  ut multo mihi maior acriorque

  ignis mollibus ardet in medullis.’

  hoc ut dixit, Amor sinistra ut ante

  dextra sternuit approbationem.

  Then Acme, slightly bending back her head, kissed with that rosy mouth her sweet love’s swimming eyes, and said, “So, my life, my darling Septimius, so may we ever serve this one master as (I swear) more strongly and fiercely burns in me the flame deep in my melting marrow.” As she said this. Love, as before on the left, now on the right sneezed goodwill.

  nunc ab auspicio bono profecti

  mutuis animis amant amantur.

  unam Septimius misellus Acmen

  mauult quam Syrias Britanniasque:

  uno in Septimio fidelis Acme

  facit delicias libidinisque.

  quis ullos homines beatiores

  vidit, quis Venerem auspicatiorem?

  And now, setting out from this good omen, heart in heart they live, loving and loved. Poor Septimius prefers Acme alone to whole Syrias and Britains. In Septimius, him alone, his faithful Acme takes her fill of loves and pleasures. Who ever saw human beings more blest? Who ever saw a more fortunate love?

  XLVI.

  Iam ver egelidos refert tepores,

  iam caeli furor aequinoctialis

  iucundis Zephyri silescit aureis.

  linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, campi

  Nicaeaeque ager uber aestuosae:

  ad claras Asiae volemus urbes.

  XLVI

  Now spring brings back balmy warmth, now the sweet gales of Zephyr are hushing the rage of the equinoctial sky. Deserted be the Phrygian plains, Catullus, and the rich land of burning Nicaea: away let us fly to the renowned cities of Asia.

  iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari,

  iam laeti studio pedes vigescunt.

  o dulces comitum valete coetus,

  longe quos simul a domo profectos

  diuersae varie viae reportant.

  Now my soul flutters in anticipation and yearns to stray; now my eager feet rejoice and grow strong. Farewell, dear bands of fellow travellers, who started together from your far-away home, and whom divided ways through changing scenes are bringing back again.