The Poems and Fragments of Catullus | Page 5

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 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