Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

Rufus, believed by me a friend, in vain and worthlessly, (in vain? yes, and in fact at an ill and grievous price) you have thus stolen upon me, and burning my innards, ah! snatched from wretched me all our good?

you have snatched it, alas, you cruel venom of our life! alas, you plague of our friendship.¹

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. Smithers, Leonard Charles, prose translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894. (Modernized by Perseus.))

Translations (1)

Carmina Perseus (Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.) — 77 focus

TO RUFUS, THE TRAITOR FRIEND.

Rufus, trusted as friend by me, so fruitlessly, vainly,

(Vainly? nay to my bane and at a ruinous price!)

Hast thou cajoled me thus, and enfiring innermost vitals,

Ravished the whole of our good own’d by wretchedest me?

Ravished; (alas and alas!) of our life thou cruellest cruel

Venom, (alas and alas!) plague of our friendship and pest.

Notes on the current edition

Carmina

1. Lines 7 ff are presented as part of poem 77 in the print edition. They are appended to poem 78 in keeping with convention.

C. Valerius Catullus Carmina 77

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

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

TO RUFUS, THE TRAITOR FRIEND.

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers