Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
  2. But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.
  3. All now empty and vain, by breath of the breezes bescattered!
  4. Now, let woman no more trust her to man when he sweareth,
  5. Ne'er let her hope to find or truth or faith in his pleadings,
  6. Who when lustful thought forelooks to somewhat attaining,
  7. Never an oath they fear, shall spare no promise to promise.
  8. Yet no sooner they sate all lewdness and lecherous fancy,
  9. Nothing remember of words and reck they naught of fore-swearing.
  10. Certes, you did I snatch from midmost whirlpool of ruin
  11. Deadly, and held it cheap loss of a brother to suffer
  12. Rather than fail your need (O false!) at hour the supremest.
  13. Therefore my limbs are doomed to be torn of birds, and of ferals
  14. Prey, nor shall upheapt Earth afford a grave to my body.
  15. Say me, what lioness bare you 'neath lone rock of the desert?
  16. What sea spued you conceived from out the spume of his surges!
  17. What manner Syrt, what ravening Scylla, what vasty Charybdis?
  18. you who for sweet life saved such meeds are lief of returning!
  19. If never willed your breast with me to mate you in marriage,
  20. Hating the savage law decreed by primitive parent,