The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus | Page 9

bear your litter, for they are
said to grow there?" I, to make myself appear to the girl as one of the
fortunate, "Nay," I say, "it did not go that badly with me, ill as the
province turned out, that I could not procure eight strapping knaves to
bear me." (But not a single one was mine either here or there who the
fractured foot of my old bedstead could hoist on his neck.) And she,
like a pathic girl, "I pray thee," says she, "lend me, my Catullus, those
bearers for a short time, for I wish to be borne to the shrine of Serapis."
"Stay," quoth I to the girl, "when I said I had this, my tongue slipped;
my friend, Cinna Gaius, he provided himself with these. In truth,
whether his or mine--what do I trouble? I use them as though I had paid
for them. But thou, in ill manner with foolish teasing dost not allow me

to be heedless."
XI.
Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli,
Sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,

Litus ut longe resonante Eoa
Tunditur unda,
Sive in Hyrcanos Arabesve molles,
5
Seu Sacas sagittiferosve Parthos,
Sive qua septemgeminus colorat
Aequora Nilus,
Sive trans altas gradietur Alpes,
Caesaris visens
monimenta magni, 10 Gallicum Rhenum, horribile aequor ultimosque
Britannos,
Omnia haec, quaecumque feret voluntas
Caelitum,
temptare simul parati,
Pauca nuntiate meae puellae
15
Non bona dicta.
Cum suis vivat valeatque moechis,
Quos simul conplexa tenet
trecentos,
Nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium
Ilia rumpens: 20 Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,
Qui illius
culpa cecidit velut prati
Vltimi flos, praeter eunte postquam
Tactus aratrost.
XI.
A PARTING INSULT TO LESBIA.
Furius and Aurelius, Catullus' friends,
Whether extremest Indian
shore he brave,
Strands where far-resounding billow rends
The shattered wave,
Or 'mid Hyrcanians dwell he, Arabs soft and wild,
5
Sacæ and Parthians of the arrow fain,
Or where the Seven-mouth'd
Nilus mud-defiled

Tinges the Main,
Or climb he lofty Alpine Crest and note
Works
monumental, Cæsar's grandeur telling, 10 Rhine Gallic, horrid Ocean
and remote
Britons low-dwelling;
All these (whatever shall the will design
Of
Heaven-homed Gods) Oh ye prepared to tempt;
Announce your briefest to that damsel mine
15
In words unkempt:--
Live she and love she wenchers several,
Embrace three hundred wi'
the like requitals,
None truly loving and withal of all
Bursting the vitals: 20 My love regard she not, my love of yore,

Which fell through fault of her, as falls the fair
Last meadow-floret
whenas passed it o'er
Touch of the share.
Furius and Aurelius, comrades of Catullus, whether he penetrate to
furthest Ind where the strand is lashed by the far-echoing Eoan surge,
or whether 'midst the Hyrcans or soft Arabs, or whether the Sacians or
quiver-bearing Parthians, or where the seven-mouthed Nile encolours
the sea, or whether he traverse the lofty Alps, gazing at the monuments
of mighty Caesar, the gallic Rhine, the dismal and remotest Britons, all
these, whatever the Heavens' Will may bear, prepared at once to
attempt,--bear ye to my girl this brief message of no fair speech. May
she live and flourish with her swivers, of whom may she hold at once
embraced the full three hundred, loving not one in real truth, but
bursting again and again the flanks of all: nor may she look upon my
love as before, she whose own guile slew it, e'en as a flower on the
greensward's verge, after the touch of the passing plough.
XII.
Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
Non belle uteris in ioco atque vino:

Tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
Hoc salsum esse putas? fugit te, inepte:


Quamvis sordida res et invenustast. 5 Non credis mihi? crede Polioni

Fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
Mutari velit: est enim leporum

Disertus puer ac facetiarum.
Quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos 10
Expecta aut mihi linteum remitte,
Quod me non