Gaius Valerius Catullus
84-54 BCE (over 2,000 years ago)
Trans RMBullard
Latin (Golden Age/Republican Era)
XXXVI. ad Lusi cacatam
ANNALES Volusi, cacata carta,
[The histories of Volusus, pieces of paper fit to shit on.]
uotum soluite pro mea puella.
[let loose a prayer for the sake of my girlfriend.]
nam sanctae Veneri Cupidinique
uouit,
[You see, she now prays to sacred Venus, and Cupid,]
si sibi restitutus essem
[if only I had been restored to her]
desissemque truces uibrare iambos,
[and had stopped rattling your disgusting verses]
electissima pessimi poetae
scripta tardipedi deo daturam
infelicibus ustulanda lignis.
[while she is about to give the choicest lines of the very worst poet to the slow-footed god, set to be burned upon ominous logs of wood.]
et hoc pessima se puella uidit
iocose lepide uouere diuis.
[And my girlfriend now thinks herself to be the very worst for here devoting this, in her charming and funny demeanor, to the gods.]
nunc o caeruleo creata ponto,
[Now, you goddess, created by the dark blue sea,]
quae sanctum Idalium
[you who created holy Idalios,]
Vriosque apertos
[and the open-range Urios,]
quaeque Ancona
[and Ancona]
Cnidumque harundinosam
colis
[and Cnidos with her hills full of swallow-birds]
quaeque Amathunta
[and Amathunta]
quaeque Golgos
[and Golgos]
quaeque Durrachium Hadriae tabernam,
[and Dyrrachium, the market center of the Adriatic,]
acceptum face redditumque uotum,
[receive and return my prayer,]
si non illepidum neque inuenustum est.
[if this is nothing that lacks charm, or enticement.]
at uos interea uenite in ignem,
[But you, in the meantime, run to the fire,]
pleni ruris et inficetiarum.
[since you are full of country spirit, and lack any sense of sophistication.]
annales Volusi, cacata carta.
[You are the histories of Volusius, pieces of paper fit to shit on.]
