Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- Wretch, ah poor wretch, I'm doomed (my soul!) to mourn throughout my days,
- For what of form or figure is, which I failed to enjoy?
- I full-grown man, I blooming youth, I stripling, I a boy,
- I of Gymnasium erst the bloom, I too of oil the pride:
- Warm was my threshold, ever stood my gateways opening wide,
- My house was ever garlanded and hung with flowery freight,
- And couch to quit with rising sun, has ever been my fate:
- Now must I Cybele's she-slave, priestess of gods, be hight?
- I Maenad I, mere bit of self, I neutral barren wight?
- I spend my life-tide couch't beneath high-towering Phrygian peaks?
- I dwell on Ida's verdant slopes mottled with snowy streaks,
- Where homes the forest-haunting doe, where roams the wildling boar?
- Now, now I rue my deed foredone, now, now it irks me sore!"
- Whenas from out those roseate lips these accents rapid flew,
- Bore them to ears divine consigned a Nuncio true and new;
- Then Cybele her lions twain disjoining from their yoke
- The left-hand enemy of the herds a-goading thus bespoke:
- "Up feral fell! up, hie with him, see rage his foot-steps urge,
- See that his fury smite him till he seek the forest verge,
- He who with over-freedom fain would fly mine empery.