The Poems and Fragments of Catullus | Page 6

lover, enough to
charm, to tire me; 10
These no curious eye can wholly number,
Tongue of jealousy ne'er
bewitch nor harm them.
VIII.
Ah poor Catullus, learn to play the fool no more.
Lost is the lost, thou
know'st it, and the past is past.
Bright once the days and sunny shone the light on thee, Still ever
hasting where she led, the maid so fair,
By me belov'd as maiden is
belov'd no more. 5
Was then enacting all the merry mirth wherein
Thyself delighted, and
the maid she said not nay.
Ah truly bright and sunny shone the days
on thee.
Now she resigns thee; child, do thou resign no less,
Nor follow her
that flies thee, 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 Cæsar, 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