Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- Never a pruner's hook thins out the shade of the tree-tufts,
- Never a bull up-plows broad glebe with bend of the coulter,
- Over whose point unuse displays the squalor of rust-stain.
- But in the homestead's heart, where'er that opulent palace
- Hides a retreat, all shines with splendour of gold and of silver.
- Ivory blanches the seats, bright gleam the flagons a-table,
- All of the mansion joys in royal riches and grandeur.
- But for the Diva's use bestrewn is the genial bedstead,
- Hidden in midmost stead, and its polisht framework of Indian
- Tusk underlies its cloth empurpled by juice of the dye-shell.
- This be a figured cloth with forms of manhood primeval
- Showing by marvel-art the gifts and graces of heroes.
- Here upon Dia's strand wave-resonant, ever-regarding
- Theseus borne from sight outside by fleet of the fleetest,
- Stands Ariadne with heart full-filled with furies unbated,
- Nor can her sense as yet believe she 'spies the espied,
- When like one that awakes new roused from slumber deceptive,
- Sees she her hapless self lone left on loneliest sandbank:
- While as the mindless youth with oars disturbeth the shallows,
- Casts to the windy storms what vows he vainly had vowed.