The Poems and Fragments of Catullus | Page 7

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 Cupids.
Would you smell it? a god shall hear Fabullus
Pray unbody him only
nose for ever.
XIV.
Calvus, save that as eyes thou art beloved,
I could verily loathe thee
for the morning's
Gift, Vatinius hardly more devoutly.
Slain with poetry! done to death with abjects!
O what syllable earn'd
it, act allow'd it? 5 Gods, your malison on the sorry client
Sent that
rascally rabble of malignants.

Yet, if, freely to guess, the gift recherché
Some grammarian, haply
Sulla, sent thee;
I repine not; a dear delight, a triumph 10 This, thy
drudgery thus to see rewarded.
Gods! an horrible and a deadly volume!
Sent so faithfully, friend, to thy Catullus,
Just to kill him upon a day,
the festive,
Saturnalia, best of all the season. 15 Sure, a drollery not
without requital.
For, come dawn, to the cases and the bookshops
I; there gather a
Caesius and Aquinus,
With Suffenus, in every wretch a poison:

Such plague-prodigy thy remuneration! 20
Now good-morrow! away with evil omen
Whence ill destiny lamely
bore ye, clumsy
Poet-rabble, an age's execration!
XIVB.
Readers, any that in the future ever
Scan my fantasies, haply lay upon
me
Hands adventurous of solicitation--
XV.
Lend thy bounty to me, to my beloved,
Kind Aurelius. I do ask a
favour
Fair and lawful; if you did e'er in earnest
Seek some virginal
innocence to cherish,
Touch not lewdly the mistress of my passion. 5
Trust the people; avails not aught to fear them,
Such, who hourly
within the streets repassing,
Run, good souls, on a busy quest or idle.
You, you only the free, the felon-hearted,
Fright me, prodigal you of
every virtue. 10

Well, let luxury run her heady riot,
Love flow over; enough abroad to
sate thee:
This one trespass--a tiny boon--presume not.
But should impious heat or humour headstrong
Drive thee wilfully,
wretch, to such profaning, 15 In one folly to dare a double outrage:
Ah what misery thine; what angry fortune!
Heels drawn tight to the
stretch shall open inward
Lodgment easy to mullet and to radish.
XVI.
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you,
Soft Aurelius, e'en as
easy Furius.
You that lightly a saucy verse resenting,
Misconceit
me, sophisticate me wanton.
Know, pure chastity rules the godly poet, 5 Rules not poesy, needs not
e'er to rule it;
Charms some verse with a witty grace delightful?
'Tis
voluptuous, impudent, a wanton.
It shall kindle an icy thought to courage,
Not boy-fancies alone, but
every frozen 10 Flank immovable, all amort to pleasure.
You my kisses, a million happy kisses,
Musing, read me a silky thrall
to softness?
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you.
XVII.
1.
Kind Colonia, fain upon bridge more lengthy to gambol,
And quite
ready to dance amain, fearing only the rotten Legs too crazily steadied
on planks of old resurrections, Lest it plunge to the deep morass, there
supinely to welter; So surprise thee a sumptuous bridge thy fancy to
pleasure, 5 Passive under a Salian god's most lusty procession;
This
rare favour, a laugh for all time, Colonia, grant me.
In my township a citizen lives: Catullus adjures thee
Headlong into

the mire below topsy-turvy to drown him. Only, where the superfluent
lake, the spongy putrescence, 10 Sinks most murkily flushed, descends
most profoundly the bottom.
Such a ninny, a fool is he; witless even as any
Two years' urchin,
across papa's elbow drowsily swaying.
2.
For though wed to a maiden in spring-tide youthfully budding, Maiden
crisp as a petulant kid, as airily wanton, 15 Sweets more privy to guard
than e'er grape-bunch shadowy-purpling; He, he leaves her alone to
romp idly, cares not a fouter. Nor leans to her at all, the man's part; but
helpless as alder Lies, new-fell'd in a ditch, beneath axe Ligurian
ham-strung, As alive to the world, as if world nor wife were at issue. 20
Such this gaby, my own, my arch fool; he sees not, he hears not Who
himself is, or if the self is, or is not, he knows not.
Him I'd gladly be lowering down thy bridge to the bottom, If from
stupor inanimate peradventure he wake him,
Leaving muddy behind
him his sluggish heart's hesitation, 25 As some