The Poems and Fragments of Catullus | Page 5

follows this edition (Oxford, 1867), in the
constitution of the text, as well as in the sectional division of the
poems.]
CATULLUS.
I.
Who shall take thee, the new, the dainty volume,
Purfled glossily,
fresh with ashy pumice?
You, Cornelius; you of old did hold them
Something worthy, the
petty witty nothings,
While you venture, alone of all Italians, 5 Time's vast chronicle in three
books to circle,
Jove! how arduous, how divinely learned!

Therefore welcome it, yours the little outcast,
This slight volume. O
yet, supreme awarder,
Virgin, save it in ages on for ever. 10
II.
Sparrow, favourite of my own beloved,
Whom to play with, or in her
arms to fondle,
She delighteth, anon with hardy-pointed
Finger
angrily doth provoke to bite her:
When my lady, a lovely star to long for, 5 Bends her splendour awhile
to tricksy frolic;
Peradventure a careful heart beguiling,
Pardie,
heavier ache perhaps to lighten;
Might I, like her, in happy play caressing
Thee, my dolorous heart
awhile deliver! 10 . . . . . . . .
I would joy, as of old the maid rejoiced

Racing fleetly, the golden apple eyeing,
Late-won loosener of the
wary girdle.
III.
Weep each heavenly Venus, all the Cupids,
Weep all men that have
any grace about ye.
Dead the sparrow, in whom my love delighted,

The dear sparrow, in whom my love delighted.
Yea, most precious, above her eyes, she held him, 5 Sweet, all honey: a
bird that ever hail'd her
Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.
Nor would move from her arms away: but only
Hopping round her,
about her, hence or hither,
Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside
her. 10
Now he wendeth along the mirky pathway,
Whence, they tell us, is
hopeless all returning.
Evil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus,
Shades all beauteous happy
things devouring,
Such a beauteous happy bird ye took him. 15

Ah! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow,
Our poor sparrow, on
whom to think my lady's
Eyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.
IV.
1.
The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern,
Of every ship
professes agilest to be.
Nor yet a timber o'er the waves alertly flew

She might not aim to pass it; oary-wing'd alike
To fleet beyond them,
or to scud beneath a sail. 5
Nor here presumes denial any stormy coast
Of Adriatic or the Cyclad
orbed isles,
A Rhodos immemorial, or that icy Thrace,
Propontis, or
the gusty Pontic ocean-arm,
Whereon, a pinnace after, in the days of yore 10 A leafy shaw she
budded; oft Cytorus' height
With her did inly whisper airy colloquy.
2.
Amastris, you by Pontus, you, the box-clad hill
Of high Cytorus, all,
the pinnace owns, to both
Was ever, is familiar; in the primal years
15 She stood upon your hoary top, a baby tree,
Within your haven
early dipt a virgin oar:
To carry thence a master o'er the surly seas,
A world of angry water,
hail'd to left, to right
The breeze of invitation, or precisely set 20 The
sheets together op'd to catch a kindly Jove.
Nor yet of any power whom the coasts adore
Was heard a vow to
soothe them, all the weary way
From outer ocean unto glassy quiet
here.
But all the past is over; indolently now 25 She rusts, a life in autumn,
and her age devotes
To Castor and with him ador'd, the twin divine.

V.
Living, Lesbia, we should e'en be loving.
Sour severity, tongue of eld
maligning,
All be to us a penny's estimation.
Suns set only to rise again to-morrow.
We, when sets in a little hour
the brief light, 5 Sleep one infinite age, a night for ever.
Thousand kisses, anon to these an hundred,
Thousand kisses again,
another hundred,
Thousand give me again, another hundred.
Then once heedfully counted all the thousands, 10 We'll uncount them
as idly; so we shall not
Know, nor traitorous eye shall envy, knowing

All those myriad happy many kisses.
VI.
But that, Flavius, hardly nice or honest
This thy folly, methinks
Catullus also
E'en had known it, a whisper had betray'd thee.
Some she-malady, some unhealthy wanton,
Fires thee verily: thence
the shy denial. 5
Least, you keep not a lonely night of anguish;
Quite too clamorous is
that idly-feigning
Couch, with wreaths, with a Syrian odour oozing;

Then that pillow alike at either utmost
Verge deep-dinted asunder,
all the trembling 10 Play, the strenuous unsophistication;
All, O
prodigal, all alike betray thee.
Why? sides shrunken, a sullen hip disabled,
Speak thee giddy, declare
a misdemeanour.
So, whatever is yours to tell or ill or 15 Good, confess it. A witty verse
awaits thee
And thy lady, to place ye both in heaven.
VII.

Ask me, Lesbia, what the sum delightful
Of thy kisses, enough to
charm, to tire me?
Multitudinous as the grains on even
Lybian sands aromatic of
Cyrene;
'Twixt Jove's oracle in the sandy desert 5 And where royally Battus old
reposeth;
Yea a company vast as in the silence
Stars which stealthily gaze on
happy lovers;
E'en so many the kisses I to kiss thee
Count, wild