Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- Him through the sedges afar the sad-eyed maiden of Minos,
- Likest a Bacchant-girl stone-carven, (O her sorrow!)
- 'Spies, a-tossing the while on sorest billows of love-care.
- Now no more on her blood-hued hair fine fillets retains she,
- No more now light veil conceals her bosom erst hidden,
- Now no more smooth zone contains her milky-hued paplets:
- All gear dropping adown from every part of her person
- Thrown, lie fronting her feet to the briny wavelets a sea-toy.
- But at such now no more of her veil or her fillet a-floating
- Had she regard: on you, Theseus! all of her heart-strength,
- All of her sprite, her mind, forlorn, were evermore hanging.
- Ah, sad soul, by grief and grievance driven beside you,
- Sowed Erycina first those brambly cares in thy bosom,
- What while issuing fierce with will enstarkened, Theseus
- Forth from the bow-bent shore Piraean putting a-seawards
- Reacht the Gortynian roofs where dwelt the injurious Monarch.
- For 'twas told of yore how forced by pestilence cruel,
- Eke as a blood rite due for the Androgeonian murder,
- Many a chosen youth and the bloom of damsels unmarried
- Food for the Minotaur, Cecropia was wont to befurnish.