Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. Dear to my heart are aye the lightest works of my comrade,
  2. Leave I the mob to enjoy tumidest Antimachus.
  1. If to the dumb deaf tomb can aught or grateful or pleasing
  2. (Calvus!) ever accrue rising from out of our dule,
  3. Wherewith yearning desire renews our loves in the bygone,
  4. And for long friendships lost many a tear must be shed;
  5. Certès, never so much for doom of premature death-day
  6. Must thy Quintilia mourn as she is joyed by thy love.
  1. Never (so love me the Gods!) deemed I 'twas preference matter
  2. Or Aemilius' mouth choose I to smell or his . . . .
  3. Nothing is this more clean, uncleaner nothing that other,
  4. Yet I ajudge . . . . cleaner and nicer to be;
  5. For while this one lacks teeth, that one has cubit-long tushes,
  6. Set in their battered gums favouring a muddy old box,
  7. Not to say aught of gape like wide-cleft gap of a she-mule
  8. Whenas in summer-heat wont peradventure to stale.
  9. Yet has he many a motte and holds himself to be handsome—
  10. Why wi' the baker's ass is he not bound to the mill?