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HE MEETS VARUS AND MISTRESS

Led me my Varus to his flame,

As I from Forum idling came.

Forthright some whorelet judged I it

Nor lacking looks nor wanting wit,

When hied we thither, mid us three

Fell various talk, as how might be

Bithynia now, and how it fared,

And if some coin I made or spared.

There was no cause (I soothly said)

The Praetors or the Cohort made

Thence to return with oilier head;

The more when ruled by

Praetor, as pile the Cohort rating.

Quoth they, But certes as ’twas there

The custom rose, some men to bear

Litter thou boughtest? I to her

To seem but richer, wealthier,

Cry, Nay, with me ’twas not so ill

That, given the Province suffered, still

Eight stiff-backed loons I could not buy.

(Withal none here nor there owned I

Who broken leg of Couch outworn

On nape of neck had ever borne!)

Then she, as pathic piece became,

Prithee Catullus mine, those same

Lend me, Serapis-wards I’d hie.

Easy, on no-wise, no, quoth I,

Whate’er was mine, I lately said

Is some mistake, my camarade

One Cinna-Gaius-bought the lot,

But his or mine, it matters what?

I use it freely as though bought,

Yet thou, pert troubler, most absurd,

None suffer’st speak an idle word.

Carmina. C. Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers (Translator), Sir Richard Francis Burton (Translator). London. 1894.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Carmina (English) (Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.)

Translations (1)

Carmina Perseus (Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Smithers, Leonard Charles, prose translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894. (Modernized by Perseus.)) — 10 focus

Varus drew me off from the Forum where I was passing the time to see his lover: a professional, as it seemed to me at first sight, neither inelegant nor lacking good looks.

When we came in, we fell to discussing various subjects, among which, how was Bithynia now, how things had gone there, and whether I had made any money there. I replied what was true, that neither ourselves

nor the praetors nor their company had brought away anything whereby to flaunt a better-scented hair-do, especially as our praetor, who boned us all, didn’t care a hair for his company. But surely, she said, you got some men to bear your litter,

for they are said to grow there? I, to make myself appear to the girl as one of the fortunate, No, I say, it did not go that badly with me, ill as the province turned out,

that I could not procure eight strapping men to bear me. (But not a single one was mine either here or there who could hoist on his neck the fractured foot of my old bedstead). And she, like the saucy tramp she was,

Please, Catullus, says she, lend me those bearers for a short time, for I want to ride to the shrine of Serapis. Hold it! say I to the girl, when I said I had this, my mind slipped; my friend,

Cinna Gaius, he provided himself with these. In truth, whether his or mine—what is it to me? I use them as though I had paid for them. But you are awfully crude and a bother, not through you am I to be careless.

C. Valerius Catullus Carmina 10

Leonard C. Smithers (Translator), Sir Richard Francis Burton (Translator)

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HE MEETS VARUS AND MISTRESS

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