C. Valerius Catullus, Carmina, Leonard C. Smithers (Translator), Sir Richard Francis Burton (Translator), 68a

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throughline_41 Nor can I (Goddesses!) hide in what things Allius sent me

throughline_42 Aid, forbear to declare what was the aidance he deigned:

throughline_43 Neither shall fugitive Time from centuries ever oblivious

throughline_44 Veil in the blinds of night friendship he lavisht on me.

throughline_45 But will I say unto you what you shall say to the many

throughline_46 Thousands in turn, and make paper, old crone, to proclaim

throughline_47

throughline_48 And in his death become noted the more and the more,

throughline_49 Nor let spider on high that weaves her delicate webbing

throughline_50 Practise such labours o’er Allius’ obsolete name.

throughline_51 For that ye weet right well what care Amathúsia two-faced

throughline_52 Gave me, and how she dasht every hope to the ground,

throughline_53 Whenas I burnt so hot as burn Trinacria’s rocks or

throughline_54 Mallia stream that feeds Œtéan Thermopylae;

throughline_55 Nor did these saddened eyes to be dimmed by assiduous weeping

throughline_56 Cease, and my cheeks with showers ever in sadness be wet.

throughline_57 E’en as from aëry heights of mountain springeth a springlet

throughline_58 Limpidest leaping forth from rocking felted with moss,

throughline_59 Then having headlong rolled the prone-laid valley downpouring,

throughline_60 Populous region amid wendeth his gradual way,

throughline_61 Sweetest solace of all to the sweltering traveller wayworn,

throughline_62 Whenas the heavy heat fissures the fiery fields;

throughline_63 Or, as to seamen lost in night of whirlwind a-glooming

throughline_64 Gentle of breath there comes fairest and favouring breeze,

throughline_65 Pollux anon being prayed, nor less vows offered to Castor:—

throughline_66 Such was the aidance to us Manius pleased to afford.

throughline_67 He to my narrow domains far wider limits laid open,

throughline_68 He too gave me the house, also he gave me the dame,

throughline_69 She upon whom both might exert them, partners in love deeds.

throughline_70 Thither graceful of gait pacing my goddess white-hued

throughline_71 Came and with gleaming foot on the worn sole of the threshold

throughline_72 Stood she and prest its slab creakihg her sandals the while;

throughline_73 E’enso with love enflamed in olden days to her helpmate,

throughline_74 Laodamía the home Protesiléan besought,

throughline_75 Sought, but in vain, for ne’er wi’ sacrificial blood shed

throughline_76 Victims appeased the Lords ruling Celestial seats:

throughline_77 Never may I so joy in aught (Rhamnusian Virgin!)

throughline_78 That I engage in deed maugrè the will of the Lords.

throughline_79 How starved altar can crave for gore in piety poured,

throughline_80 Laodamia learnt taught by the loss of her man,

throughline_81 Driven perforce to loose the neck of new-wedded help-mate,

throughline_82 Whenas a winter had gone, nor other winter had come,

throughline_83 Ere in the long dark nights her greeding love was so sated

throughline_84 That she had power to live maugrè a marriage broke off,

throughline_85 Which, as the Parcae knew, too soon was fated to happen

throughline_86 Should he a soldier sail bound for those llian walls.

throughline_87 For that by Helena’s rape, the Champion-leaders of Argives

throughline_88 Unto herself to incite Troy had already begun,

throughline_89 Troy (ah, curst be the name) common tomb of Asia and Europe,

throughline_90 Troy to sad ashes that turned valour and valorous men!

throughline_91 Eke to our brother beloved, destruction ever lamented

throughline_92 Brought she: O Brother for aye lost unto wretchedmost me,

throughline_93 Oh, to thy wretchedmost brother lost the light of his life-tide,

throughline_94 Buried together wi’ thee lieth the whole of our house:

throughline_95 Perisht along wi’ thyself forthright all joys we enjoyèd,

throughline_96 Douce joys fed by thy love during the term of our days;

throughline_97 Whom now art tombed so far nor ’mid familiar pavestones

throughline_98 Nor wi’ thine ashes stored near to thy kith and thy kin,

throughline_99 But in that Troy obscene, that Troy of ill-omen, entombèd

throughline_100 Holds thee, an alien earth-buried in uttermost bourne.

throughline_101 Thither in haste so hot (’tis said) from allwhere the Youth-hood

throughline_102 Grecian, farèd in hosts forth of their hearths and their homes,

throughline_103 Lest with a stolen punk with fullest of pleasure should Paris

throughline_104 Fairly at leisure and ease sleep in the pacific bed.

throughline_105 Such was the hapless chance, most beautiful Laodamia,

throughline_106 Tare fro’ thee dearer than life, dearer than spirit itself,

throughline_107 Him, that husband, whose love in so mighty a whirlpool of passion

throughline_108 Whelmed thee absorbed and plunged deep in its gulfy abyss,

throughline_109 E’en as the Grecians tell hard by Phenéus of Cylléne

throughline_110 Drained was the marish and dried, forming the fattest of soils,

throughline_111 Whenas in days long done to delve through marrow of mountains

throughline_112 Daréd, falsing his sire, Amphtryóniades;

throughline_113 What time sure of his shafts he smote Stymphalian monsters

throughline_114 Slaying their host at the hest dealt by a lord of less worth,

throughline_115 So might the gateway of Heaven be trodden by more of the godheads,

throughline_116 Nor might Hébé abide longer to maidenhood doomed.

throughline_117 Yet was the depth of thy love far deeper than deepest of marish

throughline_118 Which the hard mistress’s yoke taught him so tamely to bear;

throughline_119 Never was head so dear to a grandsire wasted by life-tide

throughline_120 Whenas one daughter alone a grandson so tardy had reared,

throughline_121 Who being found against hope to inherit riches of forbears

throughline_122 In the well-witnessed Will haply by name did appear,

throughline_123 And ’spite impious hopes of baffled claimant to kinship

throughline_124 Startles the Vulturine grip clutching the frost-bitten poll.

throughline_125 Nor with such rapture e’er joyed his mate of snowy-hued plumage

throughline_126 Dove-mate, albeit aye wont in her immoderate heat

throughline_127 Said be the bird to snatch hot kisses with beak ever billing,

throughline_128 As diddest thou:—yet is Woman multivolent still.

throughline_129 But thou ’vailedest alone all these to conquer in love-lowe,

throughline_130 When conjoindd once more unto thy yellow-haired spouse.

throughline_131 Worthy of yielding to her in naught or ever so little

throughline_132 Came to the bosom of us she, the fair light of my life,

throughline_133 Round whom fluttering oft the Love-God hither and thither

throughline_134 Shone with a candid sheen robed in his safflower dress.

throughline_135 She though never she bide with one Catullus contented,

throughline_136 Yet will I bear with the rare thefts of my dame the discreet,

throughline_137 Lest over-irk I give which still of fools is the fashion.

throughline_138 Often did Juno eke Queen of the Heavenly host

throughline_139 Boil wi’ the rabidest rage at dire default of a husband

throughline_140 Learning the manifold thefts of her omnivolent Jove,

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throughline_141 Yet with the Gods mankind ’tis nowise righteous to liken,

throughline_141a

throughline_141aa

throughline_142 Rid me of graceless task fit for a tremulous sire.

throughline_143 Yet was she never to me by hand paternal committed

throughline_144 Whenas she came to my house reeking Assyrian scents;

throughline_145 Nay, in the darkness of night her furtive favours she deigned me,

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throughline_146 Self-willed taking herself from very mate’s very breast.

throughline_147 Wherefore I hold it enough since given to us and us only

throughline_148 Boon of that day with Stone whiter than wont she denotes.

throughline_149 This to thee—all that I can—this offering couched in verses

throughline_150 (Allius!) as my return give I for service galore;

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throughline_151 So wi’ the seabriny rust your name may never be sullied

throughline_152 This day and that nor yet other and other again.

throughline_153 Hereto add may the Gods all good gifts, which Themis erewhiles

throughline_154 Wont on the pious of old from her full store to bestow:

throughline_155 Blest be the times of the twain, thyself and she who thy life is,

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throughline_156 Also the home wherein dallied we, no less the Dame,

throughline_157 Anser to boot who first of mortals brought us together,

throughline_158 Whence from beginning all good Fortunes that blest us were born.

throughline_159 Lastly than every else one dearer than self and far dearer,

throughline_160 Light of my life who alive living to me can endear.

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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.)) — 68 focus

Because you, oppressed by fortune and bitter calamity, sent me this letter written with tears, that I might bear up shipwrecked you tossed by the foaming waves of the sea, and restore you from the threshold of death;

you whom neither sacred Venus suffers to repose in soft slumber, desolate on a lonely couch, nor do the Muses divert with the sweet song of ancient poets, while your anxious mind keeps watch:—I am grateful that you call me your friend,

and seek here the gifts of the Muses and of Venus. But so that my troubles may not be unknown to you, Manlius, and so that you not think that I hate the duty of host, hear how I myself am engulfed in the waves of fortune, and do not further seek joyful gifts from a wretched one.

In that time when the white toga was first handed to me, and my flowering age was passing its delightful spring, much and enough did I sport: nor was the goddess unknown to us who mixes bitter-sweet with our cares. But my brother’s death plunged all this pursuit into mourning.

O brother, taken from my unhappy self; you by your dying have broken my ease, O brother; all our house is buried with you; with you have perished the whole of our joys, which your sweet love nourished in your lifetime.

With your loss, I have dismissed wholly from mind these studies and every delight of mind. So then, because you write, it is shameful for Catullus to be at Verona , because here someone of the better sort warms up his frigid limbs on a desolate couch;

that, Manlius, is not shameful; rather it is a sorrow. Therefore, forgive me if I do not bestow on you these gifts which grief has snatched from me, because I am unable. For the fact that there is no great store of writings with me arises from this, that we live at Rome : there is my home,

there is my hall, there my time is passed; here but one of my book-cases follows me. As it is thus, I would not want you to think that we do this from ill-will or with a mind not open enough, because ample store is not forthcoming to either of your desires:

of my own accord would I grant both, had I the wherewithal.

68_41 I cannot conceal, goddesses, in what way Allius has aided me, or with how many good services he has assisted me, lest the flight of time through ages of forgetfulness cover with night’s blindness this care of his.

68_45 But I shall tell it to you, and you in time to come declare it to many thousands, and make this paper, grown old, speak of it And let him be more and more noted when dead, nor let the spider aloft, weaving her thin-drawn web,

68_50 carry on her work over the neglected name of Allius. For you know what anxiety of mind twofold Amathusia gave me, and in what manner she overthrew me, when I was burning like the Trinacrian rocks, or the Malian fount in Oetaean Thermopylae;

68_55 and my sorrowful eyes did not cease to dissolve with continual weeping, or did my cheeks to be dampened with sad showers. As the transparent stream gushes forth from the moss-grown rock on the airy crest of the mountain, which, when it has rolled headlong prone down the valley,

68_60 softly wends its way through the midst of the populous parts, sweet solace to the wayfarer sweating with weariness, when the oppressive heat cracks the burnt-up fields agape: or, as to sailors tempest-tossed in black whirlpool, there comes a favourable and a gently-moving breeze,

68_65 implored by prayer now to Pollux, now to Castor: of such kind was Allius’ help to us. He laid open my closed field with a wide path; he gave us a home and he gave it to our mistress, in which we both might exercise our loves in common.

68_70 There with gracious gait my bright-hued goddess betook herself, and pressed her shining sole on the worn threshold with creaking sandal; as once came Laodamia, flaming with love for her husband, to the home of Protesilaus,—a home

68_75 begun in vain—not yet had a victim appeased the lords of the heavens with sacred blood. May nothing please me overmuch, Rhamnusian virgin, that is undertaken rashly against the will of those lords! How the thirsty altar craves the pious blood

68_80 Laodamia was taught by the loss of her husband, being compelled to abandon the neck of her new spouse before one winter and another had come, in whose long nights she might sate her eager passion, so she could live despite her broken marriage-yoke.

68_85 The Parcae decreed that this would not be long distant, if her husband went a soldier to the walls of Ilium . For then with Helen’s rape Troy had begun to summon the Argive chiefs to itself; Troy (accursed!) the common grave of Asia and of Europe ,

68_90 Troy , the bitter ashes of heroes and of every noble deed, that also lamentably brought death to our brother. O brother taken from unhappy me! O delightful light taken from an unhappy brother! together with you is buried all our house,

68_95 together with you have perished all our joys, which your sweet love nurtured during life. Whom now so far away Troy , obscene, baleful Troy , an alien land, holds in far-distant soil laid not among familiar tombs or near the ashes of his kindred

68_101 There, it is said, hastening together from all parts, the Greek youth forsook their hearths and homes, lest Paris enjoy his abducted trollop with freedom and leisure in a peaceful bed.

68_105 Such then was your case, loveliest Laodamia, to be bereft of husband sweeter than life and breath; the tide of love swallowing you in so great a current bore you off into its steep abyss, as the Greeks say Pheneus near Cyllene

68_110 drains off the soil from the rich swampland. Once the falsely-born son of Amphitryon is heard to have dug this soil, having cut through the marrow of the mountain, at the time when he knocked down the Stymphalian monsters with sure arrows at the command of his inferior lord,

68_115 so that the gate of heaven might be pressed by a greater number of deities, and Hebe might not remain in long virginity. But deeper than that abyss was your deep love which taught you then, untamed, to bear the yoke. For not as dear to the parent consumed with age

68_120 is the head of the late-born grandchild an only daughter rears, who, [an heir] found at last for the ancestral wealth, scarcely having brought his name into the public records, casts off the impious joys of mocking kinsmen and stirs away the vulture from the whitened head;

68_125 nor so much does any dove rejoice in her snow-white consort, which they say is always plucking kisses with her nibbling beak: more shamelessly than a woman who is especially passionate. But you alone surpassed the great frenzies of these,

68_130 when you were once united to your yellow-haired husband. Worthy to yield to her in no respect or in little, my light brought herself into my embrace, round whom Cupid, often running here and there, gleamed radiantly in his saffron tunic.

68_135 Although she is not content with Catullus alone, we will bear the rare intrigues of our coy lady, lest we may be too much a bother, after the manner of fools. Often even Juno, greatest of heaven-dwellers, boiled with flaring wrath at her husband’s fault,

68_140 knowing the many intrigues of passionate Jove. Yet it is not fair to compare men with the gods bear up the ungrateful burden of a trembling father. After all she was not handed to me by a father’s right hand when she came to my house fragrant with Assyrian perfume,

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68_145 but she gave me her stolen favors in the wondrous night, taken away from the embrace of her own husband. Therefore it is enough if to us alone she gives that day which she marks with a whiter stone.

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68_149 This gift to you, Allius, completed in what verse I can, is in return for many services, so that this day and that, and other and other of days may not touch your name with flaking rust. To this the gods will add the many gifts, which Themis once used to bring to the pious of old.

68_155 May you be happy, both you and your life’s-love together, and your home in which we have sported, and its mistress, and he who first gave us earth takes it away, from whom all my good fortunes were first born, and lastly she whose very self is dearer to me than all these,—

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68_160 my light, who living, living is sweet to me.

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Notes on the current edition

Carmina

1. Combined with 68 in the print edition. Separated here in keeping with convention.

C. Valerius Catullus Carmina 68a

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

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