Carmina

Catullus

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.

  1. Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
  2. Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
  3. Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
  4. Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
  5. Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
  6. Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
  7. Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
  8. Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
  9. Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
  10. And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
  11. Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
  12. While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
  13. "Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
  14. Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
  15. Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
  16. (Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
  17. Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
  18. Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,
  19. That to have pity on me vouchsafed your pitiless bosom?
  20. Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy