Carmina

Catullus

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Smithers, Leonard Charles, prose translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.

Marrucinius Asinius, you do not use your left hand nicely amid the jests and wine: you make off with the napkins of the careless. Do you think this is witty? It escapes you, fool, how coarse a thing and unbecoming it is! Don't you believe me? Believe your brother Pollio who would willingly give a talent to divert you from your thefts: for he is a lad skilled in pleasantries and clever talk. Therefore, either expect three hundred hendecasyllables, or return me my napkin which I esteem, not for its value but as a pledge of remembrance from my comrade. For Fabullus and Veranius sent me napkins as a gift from Iberian Saetabis; these I must love even as I do Veraniolus and Fabullus.