A Selection of Poems by Catullus
From The Poems of Catullus: A Bilingual Edition, transl. by Peter Green, University of
California Press, 2005.
NB: Some poems contain what many would consider obscene language.
2А
Sparrow, precious darling of my sweetheart,
always her plaything, held fast in her bosom,
whom she loves to provoke with outstretched finger
tempting the little peeker to nip harder
when my incandescent longing fancies
just a smidgin of fun and games and comfort
for the pain she's feeling (I believe it!),
something to lighten that too-heavy ardor –
how I wish I could sport with you as she does,
bring some relief to the spirit's black depression!
3
Mourn, Cupids all, every Venus, and whatever
company still exists of caring people:
Sparrow lies dead, my own true sweetheart's sparrow,
Sparrow, the pet and darling of my sweetheart,
loved by her more than she valued her own eyesight.
Sweet as honey he was, and knew his mistress
no less closely than a child her mother;
nor from her warm lap's safety would he ever
venture far, but hopping this and that way
came back, cheeping, always to his lady.
Now he's travelling on that dark-shroud journey
whence, they tell us, none of the departed
ever returns. The hell with you, you evil
blackness of Hell, devouring all that's lovely –
such a beautiful sparrow you've torn from me!
Oh wicked deed! oh wretched little sparrow!
It's your fault that now my sweetheart's eyelids
are sore and swollen red from all her weeping.
5
Let's live, Lesbia mine, and love – and as for
scandal, all the gossip, old men's strictures,
value the lot at no more than a farthing!
Suns can rise and set ad infinitum –
for us, though, once our brief life's quenched, there's only
one unending night that's left to sleep through.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
then a thousand more, a second hundred,
then yet another thousand then a hundred –
then when we've notched up all these many thousands,
shuffle the figures, lose count of the total,
so no maleficent enemy can hex us
knowing the final sum of all our kisses.
6
Flavius, that sweetie of yours (Catullus speaking)
must be totally inelegant and unsmart –
you couldn't keep quiet otherwise, you'd tell me.
Fact is, it's just some commonplace consumptive
tart you're mad for, and you blush to say so.
Look, your nights aren't solitary: silence
won't help out when your own bedroom shouts it –
stinking Syrian perfume, all those garlands,
both your pillows, on each side of the bed, all
rumpled, and the gimcrack bedstead shaken
into sharp creaking, loud perambulation!
It's no good, no good at all, your saying
nothing. Why? You wouldn't look so fucked out
if you weren't up to some inept adventure.
So, whatever you've got there, nice or awful,
tell us! I'm after you, man, and your lovebird,
want to ensky you both in witty poems!
7
You'd like to know how many of your kisses
would be enough and over, Lesbia, fór me?
Match them to every grain of Libyan sand in
silphium-rich Cyrene, from the shrine of
torrid oracular Jupiter to the sacred
sepulchre of old Battus; reckon their total
equal to all those stars that in the silent
night look down on the stolen loves of mortals.
That's the number of times I need to kiss you,
That's what would satisfy your mad Catullus –
far too many for the curious to figure,
or for an evil tongue to work you mischief!
8
Wretched Catullus, stop this stupid tomfool stuff
and what you see has perished treat as lost for good.
Time was, every day for you the sun shone bright,
when you scurried off wherever she led you –
that girl you loved as no one shall again be loved.
There, when so many charming pleasures all went on,
things that you wanted, things she didn't quite turn down,
then for you truly every day the sun shone bright.
Now she's said No, so you too, feeble wretch, say No.
Don't chase reluctance, don't embrace a sad-sack life –
make up your mind, be stubborn, obdurate, hang tough!
So goodbye, sweetheart. Now Catullus will hang tough,
won't ask, "Where is she?" won't, since you've said No, beg, plead.
You'll soon be sorry, when you get these pleas no more –
bitch, wicked bitch, poor wretch, what life awaits you now?
Who'll now pursue you, still admire you for your looks?
Whom will you love now? Who will ever call you theirs?
Who'll get your kisses? Whose lips will you bite in play?
You, though, Catullus, keep your mind made up, hang tough!
9
Dear Veranius, of all my close companions
by three hundred miles the foremost – have you
come back home to your household gods; to brothers
one in mind with you, to your aged mother?
Yes, you're back! The news makes me so happy –
I'll see you safe and sound, hear all your stories
of Spanish tribes and cities, what you did there,
told in your special style. I'll hug you to me,
rain kisses on your eyes and laughing face. Oh,
take all the fortunate men alive now – who, pray,
could be happier, more fortunate, than I am?
10
My friend Varus saw me lounging in the Forum,
dragged me off with him to meet his girlfriend.
"Little scrubber" was my first impression –
not unsmart, though, not entirely witless.
When we got there, conversation turned to
every kind of subject, and among them
how were things in Bithynia, what was happening,
had my posting brought me in a windfall?
I replied with the truth: not even praetors,
much less aides, could find even the slightest
hope of deals that would fatten their resources –
not least when said praetor was a fuckface
and didn't give a shit for his poor staffers.
"Well, at least," they said, "you must have picked up
some of what we hear's their major export –
litter-bearers?" Anxious to impress his
girlfriend, make her suppose I was a fat-cat,
"Sure," said I, "though I got a lousy province,
life wasn't all that bad for me – I somehow
found myself eight able-bodied porters."
(Truth was, neither here nor there so much as
one spent shag did I own, the kind who'd barely
manage to heft an ancient broken bed-leg.)
At this-predictable bitch – she said, "Catullus,
darling, please, please, lend me them – I only
need them a little while, I want a ride to
Serapis's temple." "Whoa," I told her, "what I
claimed just now that I had, I really hadn't,
my mind was slipping, actually it's my colleague
Cinna, first name Gaius, bought them – though why
shoúld I care who it is that they belong to?
I still use them just as though I owned them.
Not but what you're a bore, a walking pest, who
won't let pass even slight exaggerations."
13
You'll dine well, dear Fabullus, in my lodging
one day soon – if the gods look on you kindly,
if you bring along a good and lavish
dinner, not to mention an attractive
girl, plus wine and salt and witty stories.
If, I repeat, you bring this lot, old sweetheart,
you'll dine well. The thing is, your Catullus
has a purse that's full – of spiders' cobwebs.
Still, in return you'll get love undiluted –
ór something even tastier and smarter:
I'll contribute the unguent that the Cupids –
Venuses too – of passion gave my girlfriend.
Get one whiff of that, and you'll beseech the
gods to make you one big nose, Fabullus!
25
O queenie Thallus, softer than a furry little rabbit,
a goosey-woosey's marrow or the bottom of an earlobe,
an old man's languid penis with its cobwebby senescence –
yet also, Thallus, greedier than any fierce tornado
whenever heavenly sloth reveals the tipsy diners nodding:
just give me back that cloak of mine you pounced upon and pilfered,
the monogrammed set of face-towels too, and all those Spanish napkins,
which – idiot! – you keep on show as heirlooms: pray unglue them
this moment from your talons and return them to me, if you
don't want your fleecy little flanks and tender poofy paw-waws
all scribbled with the lash of whips, burned with a shameful branding,
on heat (not in your usual way), just like a little skiff that's
caught in a heavy storm at sea, a hurricane of gale force.
31
Of all near-islands, Sirmio, and of islands
the jewel, of every sort that in pellucid
lakes or vast ocean fresh or salt Neptune bears –
how gladly, with what joy I now cast eyes
on you once more, can't believe I've left those fiat,
endless Bithynian plains, can see your safe haven.
What greater bliss than when, cares all dissolved,
the mind lays down its burden, and, exhausted
by our foreign labors we at last reach home
and sink into the bed we've so long yearned for?
This, this alone makes all our toil worthwhile.
Greetings, sweet Sirmio, and rejoice, your master's
here: and rejoice, you too, you lakeside ripples,
and all you joys of home, break out in laughter.
32
Please please please, my darling Ipsithilla,
oh my delicate dish, my clever sweetheart,
please invite me home for the siesta –
and, supposing that you do invite me, make sure
no one happens to bolt and bar your shutters,
and that you don't, on a whim, decide to
go off out: just stay home and prepare for
us nine whole uninterrupted fuckfests.
Fact is, if you're on, ask me at once, I've
lunched, I'm full, fiat on my back and bursting
up, up, up, through undershirt and bedclothes!
43
Hi there, girl with a nose by no means tiny,
non-dark eyes and two most undainty ankles,
not-long fingers and undry lips, besides a
tongue that's far from overly refined – you
bankrupt from Formiae's mistress! Does the Province
spread the word that you're attractive? Do men
pick on you to compare my Lesbia with now?
Oh this tasteless age, ill bred and witless!
45
Holding his girlfriend Acme close upon his
lap, Septimius said: "My darling Acme,
if I don't love you madly, if I'm not quite,
quite resolved to be constant all my lifetime,
insurpassably, desperately devoted,
in far Libya or burning India may I
meet up, solo, with a green-eyed lion!"
At these words, Love leftward as beforehand
rightward sneezed his approbation. Then sweet
Acme, gently tilting back her head and
with those rich red lips bestowing kisses
on her darling boy's besotted eyes, said:
"Thus, Septimius, thus, my life, my precious,
may we serve this single lord for ever,
while more strongly and fiercely day by day this
hot flame blazes through my melting marrow."
At these words, Love leftward as beforehand
rightward sneezed his approbation. Now from
this auspicious omen setting out, they
give and receive true love with equal passion.
Poor Septimius now rates Acme over
all the hoopla of Syria and Britain;
with Septimius only, faithful Acme
runs the gamut of all delights and pleasures.
Who, pray, ever saw two more triumphant
lovers, who a Venus more auspicious?
50
Being at leisure yesterday, we had great
fun, Licinius, with impromptu verses
(on agreement to be light and witty),
each alternately scribbling little squiblets,
playing around with every kind of metre,
matching jest with jest, vintage with vintage.
When I left I was so high on your dazzling
charm, Licinius, and your smart one-liners,
eating afforded me (ah poor me!) no pleasure,
sleep just would not quietly close my eyelids –
there I lay on my bed in mad excitement,
tossing, eager for morning, which would let me
be with you, talk with you. But when, exhausted
by such work, my limbs were sprawled across my
truckle bed, half dead from all the effort,
then I made this poem for you, sweetheart,
let it tell you the depth of my emotion.
Now please don't be thoughtless, don't despise our
prayers, we beg of you, precious, lest hereafter
Nemesis catches you, demands repayment:
she's a vehement goddess, don't provoke her.
51
In my eyes he seems like a god's co-equal,
he, if I dare say so, eclipses godhead,
who now face to face, uninterrupted,
watches and hears you
sweetly laughing – that sunders unhappy me from
all my senses: the instant I catch sight of
you now, Lesbia, dumbness grips my <voice, it
dies on my vocal
cords> , my tongue goes torpid, and through my body
thin fire lances down, my ears are ringing
with their own thunder, while night curtains both my
eyes into darkness.
Leisure, Catullus, is dangerous to you: leisure
urges you into extravagant behavior:
leisure in time gone by has ruined kings and
prosperous cities.
60
Was it a lioness up in the Libyan foothills
or Scylla barking from her nether groin who
bore you with so tough and harsh a mind-set
that you could scorn a suppliant's desperate cry
in his last, worst, crisis, ah too savage heart?
70
My woman declares there's no one she'd sooner marry
than me, not even were Jove himself to propose.
She declare – but a woman's words to her eager lover
should be written on running water, on the wind.
72
You told me once, Lesbia, that Catullus alone understood you,
That you wouldn't choose to clasp Jupiter rather than me.
I loved you then, not just as the common herd their women,
but as a father loves his sons and sons-in-law.
Now, though, I know you. So yes, though I burn more fiercely,
yet for me you're far cheaper, lighter. "How,"
you ask, "can that be?" It's because such injury forces
a lover to love more, but to cherish less.
75
My mind has been brought so low by your conduct, Lesbia,
and so undone itself through its own goodwill
that now if you were perfect it couldn't like you,
nor cease to love you now, whatever you did.
83
Lesbia keeps insulting me in her husband's presence:
this fills the fatuous idiot with delight.
Mule, you've no insight. If she shut up and ignored me
that'd show healthy indifference; all these insults mean
is, she not only remembers, but – words of sharper import –
feels angry. That is, the lady burns – and talks.
85
I hate and love. You wonder, perhaps, why I'd do that?
I have no idea. I just feel it. I am crucified.
86
Many find Quintia beautiful. For me she's fair-complexioned,
tall, of good carriage. These few points I concede.
But overall beauty – no. There's no genuine attraction
in that whole long body, not one grain of salt.
It's Lesbia who's beautiful, and, being wholly lovely,
has stolen from all of the others their every charm.
92
Lesbia's always bad-mouthing me, never stops talking of me.
That means Lesbia loves me, or I'll be damned.
What proves it? I'm just the same still – praying nonstop
to lose her. But I love her still. Or I'll be damned.
93
I've no great urge to find favor with you, Caesar, nor to
discover whether, as man, you're black or white.
104
Do you really believe I could have cursed my darling,
whom I cherish more than both my eyes? No way:
I couldn't, nor, if I could, would my love be so desperate –
but you and Tappo make shockers of everything.
107
If anything ever came through for one who so longingly
yearned for it, yet without hope – that's balm for the soul.
So, there's balm for us too, than gold more precious,
Lesbia, in this: that you've brought yourself back to me
and my yearning for you: yes, back to my hopeless yearning,
to me, by your own choice. O brighter than white
day! who lives happier than I do? Who can argue
that life holds any more desirable bliss?
108
If public judgment, Cominius, should ensure that your hoary
old age, soiled by impure habits, was cut short,
I personally don't doubt but that some greedy vulture
would, first, be fed your severed tongue, and then
your eyes would be pecked out and eaten by a black-throat
crow, your guts scoffed by dogs, the rest by wolves.
109
You're suggesting, my life, that this mutual love between us
can be a delight – and in perpetuity?
Great gods, only let her promise be in earnest,
let her be speaking truly, and from the heart,
so that we can maintain, for the rest of our life together,
our hallowed friendship through this eternal pact!
