Gaius Valerius Catullus
84-54 BCE (over 2,000 years ago)
Trans RMBullard
Latin (Golden Age/Republican Era)
POETAE tenero, meo sodali,
uelim Caecilio, papyre,
[Let me wish for you <to say> to the poet Caecilius, my companion, you sheet of papyrus,]
dicas
Veronam ueniat,
[please tell him to visit Verona,]
Noui relinquens
Comi moenia Lariumque litus.
[as he leaves the city walls of Novum Comum and the shores of his household gods.]
nam quasdam uolo cogitationes
amici accipiat sui meique.
[You see, I wish that he hear some thoughts from his friend, and mine own.]
quare, si sapiet, uiam uorabit,
[wherefore, if he knows how, he will devour the road,]
quamuis candida milies puella
euntem reuocet,
[no matter how much his shining girlfriend calls him back, he who travels mile upon mile,]
manusque collo
ambas iniciens roget morari.
[and throwing both arms around my neck, she asks why you delay.]
quae nunc, si mihi uera nuntiantur,
illum deperit impotente amore.
[This is the girl now, if the things announced to me are true, who causes him to perish from his powerless love.]
nam quo tempore legit incohatam
Dindymi dominam,
[You see, at the very time that she reads about the famous mistress of Dindymos,]
ex eo misellae
ignes interiorem edunt medullam.
[from this, miserable little fires eat out the insides of his bones.]
ignosco tibi, Sapphica puella
musa doctior;
[I am unfamiliar to you, girl who are more learned than Sappho's muse;]
est enim uenuste
Magna Caecilio incohata Mater.
[you see, the Great Mother is called upon by Caecilius in his own charming way.]
