Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- Never are sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures.
- Nor will I send you forth with joy that gladdens my bosom,
- Nor will I suffer you show boon signs of favouring Fortune,
- But from my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow,
- Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;
- Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms,
- So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit
- Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.
- But, grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,
- (And our issue to guard and ward the seats of Erechtheus
- Sware She) that if your right is besprent with blood of the Man-Bull,
- Then do you so-wise act, and stored in memory's heart-core
- Dwell these mandates of me, no time their traces untracing.
- Dip, when first shall arise our hills to gladden your eye-glance,
- Down from your every mast the ill-omened vestments of mourning,
- Then let the twisten ropes upheave the whitest of canvas,
- Wherewith splendid shall gleam the tallest spars of the top-mast,
- These seeing sans delay with joy exalting my spirit
- Well shall I wot boon Time sets you returning before me."
- Such were the mandates which stored at first in memory constant