Carmina

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 2,080 sections

12.3
Filching the napkins of more heedless hosts.
12.4
Dost find this funny? Fool it passeth thee
12.5
How ’tis a sordid deed, a sorry jest.
12.6
Dost misbelieve me? Trust to Pollio,
12.7
Thy brother, ready to compound such thefts
12.8
E’en at a talent’s cost; for he’s a youth
12.9
In speech past master and in fair pleasantries.
12.10
Of hendecasyllabics hundreds three
12.11
Therefore expect thou, or return forthright
12.12
Linens whose loss affects me not for worth
12.13
But as mementoes of a comrade mine.
12.14
For napkins Saetaban from Ebro-land
12.15
Fabúllus ent me a free giftie given
12.16
Also Veránius: these perforce I love
12.17
E’en as my Veraniólus and Fabúllus.
13.1
Thou’lt sup right well with me, Fabúllus mine,
13.2
In days few-numbered an the Gods design,
13.3
An great and goodly meal thou bring wi’ thee
13.4
Nowise forgetting damsel bright o’ blee,
13.5
With wine, and salty wit and laughs all-gay.
13.6
An these my bonny man, thou bring, I say
13.7
Thou’lt sup right well, for thy Catullus’ purse
13.8
Save web of spider nothing does imburse.
13.9
But thou in countergift more loves shalt take
13.10
Or aught of sweeter taste or fairer make:
13.11
I’ll give thee unguent lent my girl to scent
13.12
By every Venus and all Cupids sent,
13.13
Which, as thou savour, pray Gods interpose
13.14
And thee, Fabúllus, make a Naught-but-nose.
14.1
Did I not liefer love thee than my eyes
14.2
(Winsomest Calvus!), for that gift of thine
14.3
Certès I’d hate thee with Vatinian hate.
14.4
Say me, how came I, or by word or deed,
14.5
To cause thee plague me with so many a bard?
14.6
The Gods deal many an ill to such a client,
14.7
Who sent of impious wights to thee such crowd.
14.8
But if (as guess I) this choice boon new-found
14.9
To thee from Commentator Sulla come,
14.10
None ill I hold it—well and welcome ’tis,
14.11
For that thy labours ne’er to death be doom’d.
14.12
Great Gods!What horrid booklet damnable
14.13
Unto thine own Catullus thou (perdie!)
14.14
Did send, that ever day by day die he
14.15
In Saturnalia, first of festivals.
14.16
No! No! thus shall’t not pass wi’ thee, sweet wag,
14.17
For I at dawning day will scour the booths
14.18
Of bibliopoles, Aquinii, Caesii and
14.19
Suffenus, gather all their poison-trash
14.20
And with such torments pay thee for thy pains.
14.21
Now for the present hence, adieu! begone
14.22
Thither, whence came ye, brought by luckless feet,
14.23
Pests of the Century, ye pernicious Poets.
14a.1
An of my trifles peradventure chance
14a.2
You to be readers, and the hands of you
14a.3
Without a shudder unto us be offer’d
15.1
To thee I trust my loves and me,
15.2
(Aurelius!) craving modesty.
15.3
That (if in mind didst ever long
15.4
To win aught chaste unknowing wrong)
15.5
Then guard my boy in purest way.
15.6
From folk I say not: naught affray
15.7
The crowds wont here and there to run
15.8
Through street-squares, busied every one;
15.9
But thee I dread nor less thy penis
15.10
Fair or foul, younglings’ foe I ween is!
15.11
Wag it as wish thou, at its will,
15.12
When out of doors its hope fulfil;
15.13
Him bar I, modestly, methinks.
15.14
But should ill-mind or lust’s high jinks
15.15
Thee (Sinner!), drive to sin so dread,
15.16
That durst ensnare our dearling’s head,
15.17
Ah! woe’s thee (wretch!) and evil fate,
15.18
Mullet and radish shall pierce and grate,
15.19
When feet-bound, haled through yawning gate.
16.1
I’ll you twain and
16.2
Pathic Aurelius!Fúrius, libertines!
16.3
Who durst determine from my versicles
16.4
Which seem o’er softy, that I’m scant of shame.
16.5
For pious poet it behoves be chaste
16.6
Himself; no chastity his verses need;
16.7
Nay, gain they finally more salt of wit
16.8
When over softy and of scanty shame,
16.9
Apt for exciting somewhat prurient,
16.10
In boys, I say not, but in bearded men
16.11
Who fail of movements in their hardened loins.
16.12
Ye who so many thousand kisses sung
16.13
Have read, deny male masculant I be?
16.14
You twain I’ll and
17.1
Colony! fain to display thy games on length of thy town-bridge!
17.2
There, too, ready to dance, though fearing the shaking of crazy
17.3
Logs of the Bridgelet propt on pier-piles newly renewèd,
17.4
Lest supine all sink deep-merged in the marish’s hollow,
17.5
So may the bridge hold good when builded after thy pleasure
17.6
Where Salisúbulus’ rites with solemn function are sacred,
17.7
As thou (Colony!) grant me boon of mightiest laughter.
17.8
Certain a townsman mine I’d lief see thrown from thy gangway
17.9
Hurlèd head over heels precipitous whelmed in the quagmire,
17.10
Where the lake and the boglands are most rotten and stinking,
17.11
Deepest and lividest lie, the swallow of hollow voracious.
17.12
Witless surely the wight whose sense is less than of boy-babe

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0472.phi001.perseus-eng3. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.