TO CAESAR OF MAMURRA, CALLED MENTULA

Who e’er could witness this (who could endure

Except the lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut)

That should Mamurra get what hairy Gaul

And all that farthest Britons held whilòme?

(Thou bardache Romulus!) this wilt see and bear?

Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut!

He now superb with pride superfluous

Shall go perambulate the bedrooms all

Like white-robed dovelet or Adonis-love.

Romulus thou bardache! this wilt see and bear?

Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut!

Is’t for such like name, sole Emperor thou!

Thou soughtest extreme Occidental Isle?

That this your Mentula

Millions and Milliards might at will absorb?

What is’t but Liberality misplaced?

What trifles wasted he, small heirlooms spent?

First his paternal goods were clean dispersed;

Second went Pontus ’ spoils and for the third,—

Ebro-land,—weets it well gold-rolling Tage.

Fear him the Gallias? Him the Britons’ fear?

Why cherish this ill-wight? what ’vails he do?

Save fat paternal heritage devour?

Lost ye for such a name, o puissant pair

(Father and Son-in-law), our all-in-all?

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

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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.)) — 29 focus

Who can see this, who can stand it, save the shameless, the glutton, and gambler, that Mamurra Mentula should possess what long-haired Gaul had and remotest Britain had before?

You sodomite Romulus, will you see this and bear it? Then you are shameless, a glutton and a gambler. And will he now, proud and overflowing, saunter over each one’s bed, like a little white dove or an Adonis? You sodomite Romulus, will you see this and bear it?

Then you are shameless, a glutton and a gambler. For such a name, Generalissimo, have you been to the furthest island of the west, that this love-weary Mentula of yours should squander twenty or thirty million?

What is it but a skewed liberality? Perhaps he spent too little, or perhaps he was washed clean? First he wasted his patrimony; second the loot from Pontus ; then third the loot from Spain , which even the goldbearing Tagus knows.

Now he is feared by Gauls and Britain . Why do you indulge this scoundrel? What can he do but devour well-fattened inheritances? Was it for such a name, † most wealthy father-in-law and son-in-law, that you have destroyed everything?

C. Valerius Catullus Carmina 29

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

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TO CAESAR OF MAMURRA, CALLED MENTULA

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