Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Seeing his narrow walls in such wise vexed with evils,
  2. Theseus of freest will for dear-loved Athens his body
  3. Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported
  4. Lives by Cecropia doomed to burials burying nowise;
  5. Then with a swifty ship and soft breathed breezes a-stirring,
  6. Sought he Minos the Haughty where homed in proudest of Mansions.
  7. Him as with yearning glance forthright espied the royal
  8. Maiden, whom pure chaste couch aspiring delicate odours
  9. Cherisht, in soft embrace of a mother comforted all-whiles,
  10. (E'en as the myrtles begot by the flowing floods of Eurotas,
  11. Or as the tincts distinct brought forth by breath of the springtide)
  12. Never the burning lights of her eyes from gazing upon him
  13. Turned she, before fierce flame in all her body conceived she
  14. Down in its deepest depths and burning within her marrow.
  15. Ah, with unmitigate heart exciting wretchedmost furies,
  16. You, Boy sacrosanct! man's grief and gladness commingling,
  17. You too of Golgos Queen and Lady of leafy Idalium,
  18. Whelm'd you in what manner waves that maiden fantasy-fired,
  19. All for a blond-haired youth suspiring many a singulf!
  20. Whiles how dire was the dread she dreed in languishing heart-strings;