Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- Nor shall the mother's soul for ill-matcht daughter a-grieving
- Lose by a parted couch all hopes of favourite grandsons.
- Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
- Thus in the bygone day Peleus' fate foretelling
- Chaunted from breasts divine prophetic verse the Parcae.
- For that the pure chaste homes of heroes to visit in person
- Oft-tide the Gods, and themselves to display where mortals were gathered,
- Wont were the Heavenlies while none human piety spurned.
- Often the Deities' Sire, in fulgent temple a-dwelling,
- Whenas in festal days received he his annual worship,
- Looked upon hundreds of bulls felled prone on pavement before him.
- Full oft Liber who roamed from topmost peak of Parnassus
- Hunted his howling host, his Thyiads with tresses dishevelled.
- Then with contending troops from all their city outflocking
- Gladly the Delphians hailed their God with smoking of altars.
- Often in death-full war and bravest of battle, or Mavors
- Or rapid Triton's Queen or eke the Virgin Rhamnusian,
- Bevies of weaponed men exhorting, proved their presence.
- But from the time when earth was stained with unspeakable scandals
- And forth fro' greeding breasts of all men justice departed,