Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- In the chaste breast of the Maid hidden a-sudden out-sprang;
- For did the hapless forget when in loose-girt garment it lurkèd,
- Forth would it leap as she rose, scared by her mother's approach,
- And while coursing headlong, it rolls far out of her keeping,
- O'er the triste virgin's brow flushes the conscious blush.
- He who every light of the sky world's vastness inspected,
- He who mastered in mind risings and settings of stars,
- How of the fast rising sun obscured be the fiery splendours,
- How at the seasons assured vanish the planets from view,
- How Diana to lurk thief-like 'neath Latmian stone-fields,
- Summoned by sweetness of Love, comes from her aëry gyre;
- That same Cónon espied among lights Celestial shining
- Me, Berenice's Hair, which, from her glorious head,
- Fulgent in brightness afar, to many a host of the Godheads
- Stretching her soft smooth arms she vowed to devoutly bestow,
- What time strengthened by joy of new-made wedlock the monarch
- Bounds of Assyrian land hurried to plunder and pill;
- Bearing of nightly strife new signs and traces delicious,
- Won in the war he waged virginal trophies to win.
- Loathsome is Venus to all new-paired? Else why be the parents'