Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Penalty due shall befall whoso makes oath to no purpose.
  2. Yet who assumes the vaunt forceful as iron to be?
  3. E'en was that mount o'erthrown, though greatest in universe, where through
  4. Thía's illustrious race speeded its voyage to end,
  5. Whenas the Medes brought forth new sea, and barbarous youth-hood
  6. Urged an Armada to swim traversing middle-Athos.
  7. What can be done by Hair when such things yield them to Iron?
  8. Jupiter! Grant Chalybon perish the whole of the race,
  9. Eke who in primal times ore seeking under the surface
  10. Showed th' example, and spalled iron however so hard.
  11. Shortly before I was shorn my sister tresses bewailèd
  12. Lot of me, e'en as the sole brother to Memnon the Black,
  13. Winnowing upper air wi' feathers flashing and quiv'ring,
  14. Chloris' wing-borne steed, came before Arsinoë,
  15. Whence upraising myself he flies through aëry shadows,
  16. And in chaste Venus' breast drops he the present he bears.
  17. Eke Zephyritis had sent, for the purpose trusted, her bondsman,
  18. Settler of Grecian strain on the Canopian strand.
  19. So willed various Gods, lest sole 'mid lights of the Heavens
  20. Should Ariadne's crown taken from temples of her