The Poems of Catullus

Daisy Dunn, Daisy Dunn

• Publisher: William Collins
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780007582976
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Poesía antigua

THE POEMS

I

I dedicate the elegant new little book

That I polished off not a moment ago

With dry pumice stone to who,

But you, Cornelius. For you always did think

That my ramblings were something,

Though you were the only man of Italy brave enough

In those days to unravel our whole history in three volumes –

Learned ones, by Jupiter, and exhaustive.

So have this little book, whatever it is

And whatever its worth; only please, virgin muse,

May it survive unceasing for over a hundred years.

II

Sparrow, apple of my girl’s eye,

Often she plays with you, holds you in her lap,

Gives you a fingertip when you want it

And urges you to take passionate bites

Whenever she wishes, gleaming in desire for me,

To play with something for pleasure.

And I believe it provides a small release from her

Frustration, as then the intolerable burning fades.

I wish that I could play with you as she does

And lighten the ponderous cares of my mind …

I would be as grateful as they say the quick-stepped

Atalanta was for the little golden apple

That loosed the chastity belt that bound her long.

III

Mourn, Venuses and Cupids

And all who have tasted love.

My girl’s sparrow is dead.

Sparrow, apple of my girl’s eye

Whom she loved more than her own eyes

For he was honey-sweet and knew his owner

As well as a girl knows her own mother.

He never shifted himself from her lap

But hopping around

Cheep here

Cheep there

Would chirp continuously to his mistress only.

But now he travels that shadowy path

From which they allow no return.

Shame on you, cruel darkness of the

Underworld who devours all beautiful things

As you have stolen pretty Sparrow from me.

Criminal deed. Poor little sparrow.

It is your fault the darling eyes of my girl

Are now swollen and red from weeping.

IV

That little kidney bean you see before you, friends,

Says she was once the very fastest of ships

And that no floating plank in onward surge

Could outstrip her whether she made her flight

On hand-like oars or canvas,

And she says neither the shore of the dangerous Adriatic

Denies this nor the Cycladic islands

Nor upstanding Rhodes nor the savage Thracian

Propontis nor the harsh gulf of the Black Sea

Where that yacht to be was formerly

Long-haired forest – for on the ridge of Mount Cytoris

Her whispery hair would whistle.

Pontic Amastris and boxwood-bearing Cytoris,

Yacht says this was – still is – all very familiar to you.

At the very beginning, she says,

She was rooted on your heights

And soaked her hand-like oars in your waters,

And from there she carried her master

Over many unstoppable waves, regardless of whether

The breeze summoned her from port or starboard

Or Jupiter fell favourably upon both her sheets alike.

No vows were made on her behalf to the gods

On the shore when she set out on her last voyage

From the sea all the way to this limpid lake.

But this belongs to the past. Now she has been put away

To grow old peacefully and dedicates herself to you,

Twin Castor and twin of Castor, Pollux.

V

We should live, my Lesbia, we should love,

We should value at a penny all

The rumours of our elders – they are dourer than most.

The sun can set and rise again

But once our short light has passed beneath its yardarm

We must sleep a night that never ends.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred

Then another thousand, then a second hundred.

Then – don’t stop – another thousand, then a hundred

Then when we have shared many thousands

We shall confound them so no one can know

Or cast an evil eye upon us

When he knows that our kisses are so many.

VI

Flavius, if your lover were not

Inelegant and unrefined you would want to speak –

Would not be able not to speak – about her to Catullus.

No doubt you’re in love with some feverish

Little slut and it shames you to confess it.

See, for all its silence your bed betrays

The nights you sleep are not sexless:

Steeped in flowers and the oil of Syrian olive,

Knackered and tattered, pillows everywhere,

Creaking and shaking,

The trembling bedstead shattered.

If shame did not rule you, you would reveal all.

Why, you would not flash such toned love-...