Carmina

Catullus

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

  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'
  16. Pleasure frustrated aye by the false flow of tears
  17. Poured in profusion amid illuminate genial chamber?
  18. Nay not real the 'groans; ever so help me the Gods!
  19. This truth taught me my Queen by force of manifold 'plainings
  20. After her new groom hied facing the fierceness of fight.