TO AURELIUS AND FURIUS IN DEFENCE OF HIS MUSE’S HONESTY
I’ll
you twain and
1
Pathic Aurelius!Fúrius, libertines!
Who durst determine from my versicles
Which seem o’er softy, that I’m scant of shame.
For pious poet it behoves be chaste
5
Himself; no chastity his verses need;
Nay, gain they finally more salt of wit
When over softy and of scanty shame,
Apt for exciting somewhat prurient,
In boys, I say not, but in bearded men
10
Who fail of movements in their hardened loins.
Ye who so many thousand kisses sung
Have read, deny male masculant I be?
You twain I’ll
and
Carmina. C. Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers (Translator), Sir Richard Francis Burton (Translator). London. 1894.
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