Catullus, Poems

ToposText · Catullus · 126 sections

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§ 91 MY MISTAKE: TO GELLIUS It’s not because I knew you well or thought you faithful, Gellius, or thought you could keep your mind from vile sin, that I expected you to be true to me in this hopeless ruinous love of mine: but because I was aware that she, for whom a vast desire consumes me, was no mother or sister of yours. And though I was closely linked to you by friendship, I didn’t think that was enough excuse for you. You considered it enough: there’s so much pleasure in every game to you, in which there’s any sin.
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§ 92 SIGN OF LOVE: TO LESBIA Lesbia always speaks ill of me, never shuts up about me: damn me if she doesn’t love me. What’s the sign? Because it’s the same with me: I’m continually complaining, but damn me if I don’t love her.
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§ 93 INDIFFERENCE: TO GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR I’ve no great inclination to want to please you, Caesar, or to know which of the two you are, black or white.
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§ 94 NATURALLY: TO MENTULA Mentula the Cock fornicates. Does a Cock fuck? For sure. That’s what they say: the pot picks its own herbs.
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§ 95 SMYRNA: TO GAIUS HELVIUS CINNA My Cinna’s Smyrna is published at last, nine summers and winters after it was begun, while from Hatria there’s half a million verses a year... Smyrna, reaching the deep streams of Cyprian Satrachus, white-haired centuries will long read Smyrna. But Volusian annals will be stillborn in Padua, and often provide a limp wrapper for mackerel. Let my friend’s little monument be dear to me, and the masses delight in swollen Antimachus.
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§ 96 BEYOND THE GRAVE: TO GAIUS LICINIUS CALVUS If anything from our grief, can reach beyond the mute grave, Calvus, and be pleasing and welcome, grief with which, in longing, we revive our lost loves, and weep for vanished friendships once known, surely Quintilia’s not so much sad for her early death, as joyful for your love.
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§ 97 DISGUSTING: TO AEMILIUS I did not (may the gods love me) think it mattered, whether I might be smelling Aemilius’s mouth or arse. The one’s no cleaner, the other’s no dirtier, in fact his arse is both cleaner and nicer: since it’s no teeth. Indeed, the other has foot long teeth, gums like an old box-cart, and jaws that usually gape like the open cunt of a pissing mule on heat. He fucks lots of women, and makes himself out to be charming, and isn’t set to the mill with the ass? Shouldn’t we think, of any girl touching him, she’s capable of licking a foul hangman’s arse?
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§ 98 WELL ARMED: TO VICTIUS About you, if anyone, Stinking Victius, can be said what they say of the verbose and fatuous. With that tongue, if the need arose, you could lick arses, and leather-soled sandals. If you want to destroy us completely, Victius, gape at us: what you desire you’ll wholly achieve.
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§ 99 STOLEN KISSES: TO IUVENTIUS I stole a sweet kiss while you played, sweet Iuventius, one sweeter than sweetest ambrosia. Not taken indeed with impunity: for more than an hour I remember, I hung at the top of the gallows, while I was justifying myself to you, yet with my tears I couldn’t lessen your anger a tiny morsel. No sooner was it done, than, your lips rinsed with plenty of water, you banished it with your fingers, so nothing contracted from my lips might remain, as though it were the foul spit of a tainted whore. More, you handed me unhappily to vicious love who’s not failed to torment me in every way, so that sweet kiss, altered for me from ambrosia, was more bitter than bitter hellebore then. Since you lay down such punishments for unhappy love, now, after this, I’ll never steal kisses again.
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§ 100 A CHOICE: TO MARCUS CAELIUS Caelius with Aufilenus, and Quintius with Aufilena, both madly in love with the brother, the sister, the flower of Veronese youth. That as they say’s truly sweet, that fellowship of brothers. Who shall I favour more? You, Caelius, since your friendship, alone, saw me through my passion, when the furious flames scorched me to the core. Be happy, Caelius, be successful in love.
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§ 101 AVE ATQUE VALE: AN OFFERING TO THE DEAD Carried over many seas, and through many nations, brother, I come to these sad funeral rites, to grant you the last gifts to the dead, and speak in vain to your mute ashes. Seeing that fate has stolen from me your very self. Ah alas, my brother, taken shamefully from me, yet, by the ancient custom of our parents, receive these sad gifts, offerings to the dead, soaked deeply with a brother’s tears, and for eternity, brother: ‘Hail and Farewell!’
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§ 102 SECRECY: TO CORNELIUS If anything was ever entrusted by a friend to a silent sure one, whose loyalty of spirit is deeply known, you’ll find I’m equally bound by that sacred rite, Cornelius, and turned into a pure Harpocrates.
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§ 103 CHOOSE: TO SILO Silo, please return the ten sestertii, and then be as wild and unruly as you like: or, if you like the money, please leave off being a pander, and wild and unruly too.
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§ 104 MONSTROUS Do you think I could speak ill of my own life, she who’s dearer to me than my two eyes? I couldn’t, nor, if I could, would I love so desperately: but you, with Tappo, you do everything monstrous.
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§ 105 NO POET: TO MENTULA Mentula the Cock tries to climb the Parnassian Mount: the Muses with pitchforks toss him out, head first.
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§ 106 IT’S OBVIOUS When you see one who’s an auctioneer with a pretty boy, what to think, but that he wants to advertise himself?
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§ 107 BACK AGAIN: TO LESBIA If anything happens to one who desires it, and wishes and never expects it, it’s a special delight to the mind. Likewise, this is delight, dearer than gold, to me, that you come back to me, Lesbia, in my longing, come back, desired and un-hoped for, give yourself back to me. O day marked out with greater brightness! Who exists more happily than me, or can say that he wishes for any life greater than this?
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§ 108 DEAR COMINIUS If you white-haired old age, soiled by your impure ways, is ended by will of the people, Cominius, I’ve no doubt, for my part, your tongue, first, the enemy of good, will be cut out, and given to eager vultures, your eyes gouged out, swallowed by black-throated ravens, your intestines by dogs, the rest of your body by wolves.
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§ 109 A PRAYER: TO LESBIA You declare that this love of ours will be happy, mea vita, and eternal between us. Great gods, let it be that she promises truthfully, and says it sincerely, and from her heart, so we may extend, through the whole of our life, this endless bond of sacred friendship.
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§ 110 NO CHEATING: TO AUFILENA Aufilena, just mistresses are always praised: they accept their reward, for what they agree to. You, who promised, dishonestly hostile, to me, who don’t give but just take, you do wrong. To carry it through would be fine, Aufilena, not to promise is chaste: but to snatch at what’s given in fraudulent service, is worse than the greediest whore who offers herself with her whole body.
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§ 111 PREFERABLE: TO AUFILENA To live content with one man, Aufilena, is the glory of highest glories for a bride: but its better to sleep with whoever she likes, than be mother of her cousins by her uncle.
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§ 112 TO NASO You’re a lot of man, Naso, but lots of men wouldn’t stoop to you: Naso, a lot of man and a pathic.
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§ 113 FRUITFUL: TO GAIUS HELVIUS CINNA In Pompey’s first Consulate two men frequented Maecilia, Cinna: now he is Consul again those two remain, but each one’s increased by a thousand. The fruitful seed of adultery.
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§ 114 MIRAGE: TO MENTULA They say, no lie, that Mentula the Cock is rich with the pastures of Firmum, full of good things, fowling of every kind, fish, meadows, fields and game. In vain: his income’s surpassed by his costs. So, I concede he’s rich, while everything’s lacking. lets praise the pastures, so long as he’s in want.
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§ 115 MENACE: TO MENTULA Mentula’s as good as thirty acres of meadows, forty of fields: the rest of it’s marsh. Why shouldn’t he exceed Croesus in riches, one who possesses so many assets, in land, meadows, fields, vast woods and pastures and pools as far as the Hyperboreans, and Ocean’s seas? All this is great, but he’s the greatest of all, not a man, but, in truth, a great projecting Cock.
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§ 116 THE LAST WORD: TO GELLIUS I’ve often been searching around, my busy mind hunting, as to how I could send you Callimachus’s poems, so they’d soften you towards me, so you’d not try to land your hostile shafts on my head, now I see I’ve troubled myself in vain, Gellius, my good intentions were worthless. I’ll evade the shafts of yours you fire at me, but you’ll be punished, fixed for ever by mine.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by A.S. (Tony) Kline. Composed ca. 54 BCE. Licence: Copyright <a href='https://www.poetryintranslation.com/Admin/Copyright.php'>A.S. Kline</a>, used by permission. Source.