Carmina

Catullus

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

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