The Poems and Fragments of Catullus | Page 6

or to bide in woe 10 Consent, but harden all thy heart, resolve, endure.
Farewell, my love. Catullus is resolv'd, endures,?He will not ask for pity, will not importune.
But thou'lt be mourning thus to pine unask'd alway.?O past retrieval faithless! Ah what hours are thine! 15 When comes a likely wooer? who protests thou'rt fair?
Who brooks to love thee? who decrees to live thine own? Whose kiss delights thee? whose the lips that own thy bite? Yet, yet, Catullus, learn to bear, resolve, endure.
IX.
Dear Veranius, you of all my comrades?Worth, you only, a many goodly thousands,
Speak they truly that you your hearth revisit,?Brothers duteous, homely mother aged?
Yes, believe them. O happy news, Catullus! 5
I shall see him alive, alive shall hear him,?Tribes Iberian, uses, haunts, declaring
As his wont is; on him my neck reclining?Kiss his flowery face, his eyes delightful.
Now, all men that have any mirth about you, 10 Know ye happier any, any blither?
X.
In the Forum as I was idly roaming?Varus took me a merry dame to visit.?She a lady, methought upon the moment,?Of some quality, not without refinement.
1.
So, arrived, in a trice we fell on endless 5 Themes colloquial; how the fact, the falsehood?With Bithynia, what the case about it,?Had it helped me to profit or to money.
Then I told her a very truth; no atom?There for company, praetor, hungry natives, 10 Home might render a body aught the fatter:
Then our praetor a castaway, could hugely?Mulct his company, had a taste to jeer them.
2.
Spoke another, 'Yet anyways, to bear you?Men were ready, enough to grace a litter. 15 They grow quantities, if report belies not.'?Then supremely myself to flaunt before her,
I 'So thoroughly could not angry fortune?Spite, I might not, afflicted in my province,?Get erected a lusty eight to bear me. 20
But so scrubby the poor sedan, the batter'd?Frame-work, nobody there nor here could ever?Lift it, painfully neck to nick adjusting.'
3.
Quoth the lady, belike a lady wanton,?'Just for courtesy, lend me, dear Catullus, 25 Those same nobodies. I the great Sarapis?Go to visit awhile.' Said I in answer,
'Thanks; but, lady, for all my easy boasting,?'Twas too summary; there's a friend who knows me,?Cinna Gaius, his the sturdy bearers. 30
'Mine or Cinna's, an inch alone divides us,?I use Cinna's, as e'en my own possession.?But you're really a bore, a very tiresome?Dame unmannerly, thus to take me napping.'
XI.
Furius and Aurelius, O my comrades,?Whether your Catullus attain to farthest?Ind, the long shore lash'd by reverberating
Surges Eoan;
Hyrcan or luxurious horde Arabian, 5

Sacan or grim Parthian arrow-bearer,?Fields the rich Nile discolorates, a seven-fold
River abounding;?Whether o'er high Alps he afoot ascending?Track the long records of a mighty C?sar, 10 Rhene, the Gauls' deep river, a lonely Britain
Dismal in ocean;?This, or aught else haply the gods determine,?Absolute, you, with me in all to part not;
Bid my love greet, bear her a little errand, 15
Scarcely of honour.

Say 'Live on yet, still given o'er to nameless?Lords, within one bosom, a many wooers,?Clasp'd, as unlov'd each, so in hourly change all
Lewdly disabled. 20 'Think not henceforth, thou, to recal Catullus'?Love; thy own sin slew it, as on the meadow's?Verge declines, ungently beneath the plough-share
Stricken, a flower.'
XII.
Marrucinian Asinius, hardly civil?Left-hand practices o'er the merry wine-cup.?Watch occasion, anon remove the napkin.?Call this drollery? Trust me, friend, it is not.?'Tis most beastly, a trick among a thousand. 5
Not believe me? believe a friendly brother,?Laughing Pollio; he declares a talent?Poor indemnification, he the parlous?Child of voluble humour and facetious.
So face hendecasyllables, a thousand, 10 Or most speedily send me back the napkin;?Gift not prized at a sorry valuation,?But for company; 'twas a friend's memento.
Cloth of Saetabis, exquisite, from utmost?Iber, sent as a gift to me Fabullus 15 And Veranius. Ought not I to love them?As Veranius even, as Fabullus?
XIII.
Please kind heaven, in happy time, Fabullus,?We'll dine merrily, dear my friend, together.
Promise only to bring, your own, a dinner?Rich and goodly; withal a lily maiden,?Wine, and banter, a world of hearty laughing. 5
Promise only; betimes we dine, my gentle?Friend, most merrily; but, for your Catullus--?Know he boasts but a pouch of empty cobwebs.
Yet take contrary fee, the quintessential?Love, or sweeter if aught is, aught supremer, 10
Perfume savoury, mine; my love received it?Gift of every Venus, all the