Comum's town-walls and Larian Shores adieu;"For I determined certain fancies heAccept from mutual friend to him and me.Wherefore he will, if wise, devour the way,Though the blonde damsel thousand times essayRecall his going and with arms a-neckA-winding would e'er seek his course to check;A girl who (if the truth be truly told)Dies of a hopeless passion uncontroul'd;For since the doings of the Díndymus-dame,By himself storied, she hath read, a flameWasting her inmost marrow-core hath burned. I pardon thee, than Sapphic Muse more learn'd,Damsel : for truly sung in sweetest laysWas by Cecilius Magna Mater's praise. ON "THE ANNALS "—A SO-CALLED POEM OF VOLUSIUS
Volusius' Annals, paper scum-bewrayed!Fulfil that promise erst my damsel made;Who vowed to Holy Venus and her son,Cupid, should I return to her anonAnd cease to brandish iamb-lines accurst,The writ selected erst of bards the worstShe to the limping Godhead would devoteWith slowly-burning wood of illest note.This was the vilest which my girl could findWith vow facetious to the Gods assigned. Now, 0 Creation of the azure sea,Holy Idalium, Urian havenryHaunting, Ancona, Cnidos' reedy site,Amathus, Golgos, and the tavern hightDurrachium-thine Adrian abode—The vow accepting, recognize the vowedAs not unworthy and unhandsome naught.But do ye meanwhile to the fire be brought, That teem with boorish jest of sorry blade, Volusius' Annals, paper scum-bewrayed. TO THE FREQUENTERS OF A LOW TAVERNSalacious Tavern and ye taverner-host,From Pileate Brothers the ninth pile-post,D'ye claim, you only of the, mentule boast,D'ye claim alone what damsels be the bestTo swive: as he-goats holding all the rest?Is't when like boobies sit ye incontinent here,One or two hundred, deem ye that I fearTwo hundred . . . . at one brunt?Ay, think so, natheless all your tavern-frontWith many a scorpion I will over-write.For that my damsel, fro' my breast took flight,By me so lovèd, as shall loved be none,Wherefor so mighty wars were waged and won,Does sit in public here. Ye fain, rich wights,All woo her: thither too (the chief of slights !) All pitiful knaves and by-street wenchers fare,And thou, (than any worse), with hanging hair,In coney-breeding Celtiberia bred,Egnatius! bonnified by beard full-fed,And teeth with Spanish urine polishèd.
A COMPLAINT TO CORNIFICIUS
Cornificius! 'Tis ill with thy Catullus,'Tis ill (by Hercules) distressfully:Iller and iller every day and hour.Whose soul (as smallest boon and easiest)With what of comfort hast thou deign'd console?Wi' thee I'm angered! Dost so prize my love?Yet some consoling utterance had been wellThough sadder 'twere than Simonídean tears.ON EGNATIUS OF THE WHITE TEETHEgnatius for that owns he teeth snow-white,Grins ever, everywhere. When placed a wightIn dock, when pleader would draw tears, the whileHe grins. When pious son at funeral pileMourns, or lone mother sobs for sole lost son,He grins. Whate'er, whene'er, howe'er is done,Of deed he grins. Such be his malady,Nor kind, nor courteous-so beseemeth me—