Carmina

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 544 sections

67.5
and which on the contrary, so it is said, did serve grudgingly after the old man was stretched stark, you doing service to the bride. Come, tell us why you are reported to be changed and to have renounced your ancient faithfulness to your lord?
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No, (so may I please Caecilius to whom I am now made over!)
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it is not my fault, although it is said so to be, nor may anyone impute any crime to me; albeit the fabling tongues of folk make it so, who, whenever anything is found not well done, all clamor at me: Door, yours is the blame!
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It is not enough for you to say this by words merely, but so to act that everyone may feel it and see it.
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In what way can I? No one questions or troubles to know.
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We are wishful: be not doubtful to tell us.
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First then, the virgin (so they called her!) who was handed to us
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was spurious. Her husband was not the first to touch her, he whose little dagger, hanging more limply than the tender beet, never raised itself to the middle of his tunic: but his father is said to have violated his son’s bed and to have polluted the unhappy house,
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either because his lewd mind blazed with blind lust, or because his impotent son was sprung from sterile seed, and therefore one greater of nerve than he was needed, who could unloose the virgin’s belt.
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You tell of an excellent parent marvellous in piety,
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who himself urinated in the womb of his son!
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But Brixia says that she has knowledge of not only this, placed beneath the Cycnean peak, through which the golden-hued Mella flows with its gentle current, Brixia, beloved mother of my Verona.
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For she talks of the loves of Postumius and of Cornelius, with whom that one committed foul adultery.
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Someone might say here: How do know you these things, O door? you who are never allowed absence from your lord’s threshold, nor may hear folk’s gossip, but fixed to this beam
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are accustomed only to open or to shut the house!
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Often have I heard her talking with hushed voice, when alone with her serving girls, about her iniquities, quoting by name those whom we have spoken of, for she did not expect me to be gifted with either tongue or ear.
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Moreover she added a certain one whose name I’m unwilling to speak, lest he uplift his red eyebrows. He is a lanky fellow, against whom some time ago was brought a grave law-suit over the spurious child-birth of a lying belly.
68.1
Because you, oppressed by fortune and bitter calamity, sent me this letter written with tears, that I might bear up shipwrecked you tossed by the foaming waves of the sea, and restore you from the threshold of death;
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you whom neither sacred Venus suffers to repose in soft slumber, desolate on a lonely couch, nor do the Muses divert with the sweet song of ancient poets, while your anxious mind keeps watch:—I am grateful that you call me your friend,
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and seek here the gifts of the Muses and of Venus. But so that my troubles may not be unknown to you, Manlius, and so that you not think that I hate the duty of host, hear how I myself am engulfed in the waves of fortune, and do not further seek joyful gifts from a wretched one.
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In that time when the white toga was first handed to me, and my flowering age was passing its delightful spring, much and enough did I sport: nor was the goddess unknown to us who mixes bitter-sweet with our cares. But my brother’s death plunged all this pursuit into mourning.
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O brother, taken from my unhappy self; you by your dying have broken my ease, O brother; all our house is buried with you; with you have perished the whole of our joys, which your sweet love nourished in your lifetime.
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With your loss, I have dismissed wholly from mind these studies and every delight of mind. So then, because you write, it is shameful for Catullus to be at Verona, because here someone of the better sort warms up his frigid limbs on a desolate couch;
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that, Manlius, is not shameful; rather it is a sorrow. Therefore, forgive me if I do not bestow on you these gifts which grief has snatched from me, because I am unable. For the fact that there is no great store of writings with me arises from this, that we live at Rome: there is my home,
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there is my hall, there my time is passed; here but one of my book-cases follows me. As it is thus, I would not want you to think that we do this from ill-will or with a mind not open enough, because ample store is not forthcoming to either of your desires:
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of my own accord would I grant both, had I the wherewithal.
68a.1
I cannot conceal, goddesses, in what way Allius has aided me, or with how many good services he has assisted me, lest the flight of time through ages of forgetfulness cover with night’s blindness this care of his.
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But I shall tell it to you, and you in time to come declare it to many thousands, and make this paper, grown old, speak of it And let him be more and more noted when dead, nor let the spider aloft, weaving her thin-drawn web,
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carry on her work over the neglected name of Allius. For you know what anxiety of mind twofold Amathusia gave me, and in what manner she overthrew me, when I was burning like the Trinacrian rocks, or the Malian fount in Oetaean Thermopylae;
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and my sorrowful eyes did not cease to dissolve with continual weeping, or did my cheeks to be dampened with sad showers. As the transparent stream gushes forth from the moss-grown rock on the airy crest of the mountain, which, when it has rolled headlong prone down the valley,
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softly wends its way through the midst of the populous parts, sweet solace to the wayfarer sweating with weariness, when the oppressive heat cracks the burnt-up fields agape: or, as to sailors tempest-tossed in black whirlpool, there comes a favourable and a gently-moving breeze,
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implored by prayer now to Pollux, now to Castor: of such kind was Allius’ help to us. He laid open my closed field with a wide path; he gave us a home and he gave it to our mistress, in which we both might exercise our loves in common.
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There with gracious gait my bright-hued goddess betook herself, and pressed her shining sole on the worn threshold with creaking sandal; as once came Laodamia, flaming with love for her husband, to the home of Protesilaus,—a home
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begun in vain—not yet had a victim appeased the lords of the heavens with sacred blood. May nothing please me overmuch, Rhamnusian virgin, that is undertaken rashly against the will of those lords! How the thirsty altar craves the pious blood
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Laodamia was taught by the loss of her husband, being compelled to abandon the neck of her new spouse before one winter and another had come, in whose long nights she might sate her eager passion, so she could live despite her broken marriage-yoke.
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The Parcae decreed that this would not be long distant, if her husband went a soldier to the walls of Ilium. For then with Helen’s rape Troy had begun to summon the Argive chiefs to itself; Troy (accursed!) the common grave of Asia and of Europe,
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Troy, the bitter ashes of heroes and of every noble deed, that also lamentably brought death to our brother. O brother taken from unhappy me! O delightful light taken from an unhappy brother! together with you is buried all our house,
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together with you have perished all our joys, which your sweet love nurtured during life. Whom now so far away Troy, obscene, baleful Troy, an alien land, holds in far-distant soil laid not among familiar tombs or near the ashes of his kindred
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There, it is said, hastening together from all parts, the Greek youth forsook their hearths and homes, lest Paris enjoy his abducted trollop with freedom and leisure in a peaceful bed.
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Such then was your case, loveliest Laodamia, to be bereft of husband sweeter than life and breath; the tide of love swallowing you in so great a current bore you off into its steep abyss, as the Greeks say Pheneus near Cyllene
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drains off the soil from the rich swampland. Once the falsely-born son of Amphitryon is heard to have dug this soil, having cut through the marrow of the mountain, at the time when he knocked down the Stymphalian monsters with sure arrows at the command of his inferior lord,
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so that the gate of heaven might be pressed by a greater number of deities, and Hebe might not remain in long virginity. But deeper than that abyss was your deep love which taught you then, untamed, to bear the yoke. For not as dear to the parent consumed with age
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is the head of the late-born grandchild an only daughter rears, who, [an heir] found at last for the ancestral wealth, scarcely having brought his name into the public records, casts off the impious joys of mocking kinsmen and stirs away the vulture from the whitened head;
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nor so much does any dove rejoice in her snow-white consort, which they say is always plucking kisses with her nibbling beak: more shamelessly than a woman who is especially passionate. But you alone surpassed the great frenzies of these,
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when you were once united to your yellow-haired husband. Worthy to yield to her in no respect or in little, my light brought herself into my embrace, round whom Cupid, often running here and there, gleamed radiantly in his saffron tunic.
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Although she is not content with Catullus alone, we will bear the rare intrigues of our coy lady, lest we may be too much a bother, after the manner of fools. Often even Juno, greatest of heaven-dwellers, boiled with flaring wrath at her husband’s fault,
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knowing the many intrigues of passionate Jove. Yet it is not fair to compare men with the gods bear up the ungrateful burden of a trembling father. After all she was not handed to me by a father’s right hand when she came to my house fragrant with Assyrian perfume,
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but she gave me her stolen favors in the wondrous night, taken away from the embrace of her own husband. Therefore it is enough if to us alone she gives that day which she marks with a whiter stone.
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This gift to you, Allius, completed in what verse I can, is in return for many services, so that this day and that, and other and other of days may not touch your name with flaking rust. To this the gods will add the many gifts, which Themis once used to bring to the pious of old.
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May you be happy, both you and your life’s-love together, and your home in which we have sported, and its mistress, and he who first gave us earth takes it away, from whom all my good fortunes were first born, and lastly she whose very self is dearer to me than all these,—
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my light, who living, living is sweet to me.
69.1
Don’t wonder why no woman, Rufus, wants to place her tender thigh beneath you, not even if you tempt her with the gift of a rare robe or with the delights of a crystal-clear gem.
69.5
A certain ill tale injures you, that you bear housed in the valley of your armpits a grim goat. This everyone fears. It’s no wonder: for it is an exceeding ill beast, with whom no fair girl will sleep. Therefore, either murder that cruel plague of their noses,
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or cease to marvel, Why do they fly?
70.1
No one, says my lady, would she rather wed than myself, not even if Jupiter himself sought her. Thus she says! but what a woman says to a desirous lover ought fitly to be written on the breezes and in running waters.
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If ever anyone was deservedly cursed with an atrocious goat-stench from armpits, or if limping gout did justly gnaw one, it is your rival, who occupies himself with your love, and who wondrously has obtained each these ills from you.
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For as often as he takes his pleasure, he just as often takes vengeance on both; herself he prostrates by his stink, he is slain by his gout.
72.1
Once you used to say you knew only Catullus, Lesbia, that you would not hold Jove before me. I loved you then, not only as a fellow his mistress, but as a father loves his own sons and sons-in-law.
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Now I do know you: so if I burn at greater cost, you are nevertheless to me far viler and of lighter thought. How can this be? you ask. Because such wrongs drive a lover to love the more, but less to respect.
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Cease to wish you well deserve anything from anyone, or to think anyone can become pious. All things are unpleasant, it is of no avail to have done deeds of kindness, but rather it wearies me, wearies me and proves the greater ill:
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so with me, whom no one oppresses more heavily nor more bitterly than he who a little while ago held me his one and only friend.
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Gellius had heard that his uncle used to scold anyone who spoke of or practised the delights of love. That this should not happen to him, he kneaded deeply his uncle’s wife herself, and turned his uncle into a Harpocrates.
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He did whatever he wanted; for now, even if he boned his uncle, the uncle wouldn’t say a word.
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Now is my mind brought down to this point, my Lesbia, by your fault, and has so lost itself by its devotion, that now it cannot wish you well, were you to become most perfect, nor can it cease to love you, whatever you do.
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If there is any pleasure in a man’s recalling the good deeds of the past, when he knows that he is pious and has not violated any sacred trust or abused the divinity of the gods to deceive men in any pact,
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great store of joys awaits you during your length of years, Catullus, from this thankless love of yours. For whatever people can say or do well for someone, such have been your sayings and your doings, and all your confidences have been squandered on a thankless mind.
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So then why do you torture yourself further? Why don’t you strengthen your resolve and lead yourself out of this and, since the gods are unwilling, stop being miserable? It is difficult suddenly to set aside a love of long standing; it is difficult, this is true, no matter how you do it.
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This is your one salvation, this you must fight to the finish; you must do it, whether it is possible or impossible. O gods, if it is in you to have pity, or if ever you brought help to men in death’s very extremity, look on pitiful me, and if I have lived my life with purity,
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snatch from me this canker and pest! Ah! like a numbness creeping through my inmost veins it has cast out every happiness from my breast. Now I no longer pray that she may love me in return, or (what is not possible) that she should become chaste:
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I wish but for health and to cast aside this foul disease. O gods, grant me this in return for my piety.
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Rufus, believed by me a friend, in vain and worthlessly, (in vain? yes, and in fact at an ill and grievous price) you have thus stolen upon me, and burning my innards, ah! snatched from wretched me all our good?
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you have snatched it, alas, you cruel venom of our life! alas, you plague of our friendship.
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Gallus has brothers, one of whom has a most charming spouse, the other a charming son. Gallus is a nice man: for he joins together their sweet loves, so that the nice girl beds with the nice boy.
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Gallus is a foolish man not to see that he is himself a husband who as an uncle shows how to cuckold an uncle.
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But now I grieve that the pure kisses of a pure girl have mingled with your filthy spit. But in truth you will not come off with impunity; for every age
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will know you, and Old Lady Fame will tell who you are.
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Lesbius is handsome: why not so? whom Lesbia prefers to you, Catullus, and to your whole family. Yet this handsome one can sell Catullus and his family if he can find three acquaintances he can gain greet with a kiss.
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What shall I say, Gellius, how those rosy-red lips have become whiter than winter snow, when you leave home in the morning and when the eighth hour stirs you from a gentle nap amid the long day?
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Something is certain: perhaps Rumor whispers true that you are devouring the well-grown tenseness of a man’s middle? So for certain it must be! the ruptured guts of poor little Victor and your lips marked with what was lately-drained cry it aloud.
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Could no one in this great people, Juventius, be a nice man you could fall in love with except for this guest of yours, paler than a gilded statue, from the dying town of Pisaurum?
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He who now has your heart, whom you dare to place before us; and you know not what crime you commit.
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Quintius, if you want Catullus to owe you his eyes, or another thing dearer than his eyes, if such there is, do not snatch from him what is much dearer to him than his eyes, or what is dearer than his eyes.
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Lesbia in her husband’s presence says the utmost ill about me: this gives the fool the greatest pleasure. Mule, you perceive nothing! If she had forgotten about us and were silent, she would be all right: now becasuse she snarls and scolds,
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not only does she remember, but, what is far more to the point, she is angry. That is, she is enflamed and is speaking.
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Chommodious Arrius would say, whenever he wanted to say commodious, and for insidious hinsidious, and then hoped that he had spoken with accent wondrous fine, when aspirating hinsidious to the full of his lungs.
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I believe that his mother, his free uncle, his maternal grandfather and grandmother all spoke thus. When he was sent to Syria, everyone’s ears were rested, hearing these words spoken smoothly and slightly, nor after that did folk fear such words from him,
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when suddenly is brought the horrible news that th’ Ionian waves, after Arrius had come there, no longer are Ionian, but are now the Hionian Hocean.
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I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.
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Quintia is lovely to many; to me she is radiant, tall, and straight. Each of these qualities I grant, but deny the whole of these is loveliness: for there is no charm, not a grain of salt in so great a body.
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Lesbia is lovely, for not only is the whole of her most beautiful, but she has stolen all the Venus-charm from everybody together.
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No woman can say truly that she has been loved as much as you, Lesbia, have been loved by me: no trust in any pact has ever been found so great as was that on my part in the love of you.
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What is he doing, Gellius, who has an itch with mother and sister and stays up all night with tunics cast aside? What is he doing, who does not allow his uncle to be a husband? Do you know the weight of crime he undertakes?
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He undertakes, O Gellius, so much as neither furthest Tethys nor Oceanus, father of nymphs, can cleanse: for there is no crime which can go further, not even if with lowered head he swallowed himself.
89.1
Gellius is thin: why not? He who lives with so good a mother, so healthy and so beauteous a sister, and who has such a good uncle, and a world-full of girl cousins, why would he cease to be skinny?
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who if he touched nothing but what is not lawful to touch—you will find ample reason why he is skinny.
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Let there be born a Magus from the unspeakable coupling of Gellius and his mother, and let him learn the Persian art of divination. For if Persia’s impious religion is true, a pleasing Magus ought to be begotten from a mother and son,
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so that, when the chant has been learned, he may worship gods while melting the fat innards in the sacred flame.
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For no other reason, Gellius, did I hope for your faith to me in this our unhappy, this our desperate love, (not because I knew you well or thought you constant or able to restrain your mind from a shameless act)
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, but because I saw this girl whose love kept gnawing at me was neither your mother nor your sister. And although I have had many mutual dealings with you, I did not believe this case to be enough cause for you. You considered it enough: so great is your joy in every
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kind of wrongdoing in which there is some vice.

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0472.phi001.perseus-eng4. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.