Catullus: Selected Poems 0300275293, 9780300275292

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Introduction
1
2
3
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
13
14
15
22
24
27
28
29
31
32
35
36
37
39
40
43
44
46
48
50
51
53
55
58
60
65
68a
70
72
75
76
79
81
83
85
86
87
91
92
95
96
99
101
104
107
109
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index of English First Lines
Index of Latin First Lines

Citation preview

C AT ULLUS

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BY STEPHEN MITCHELL Poetry and Fiction The First Christmas • The Way of Forgiveness • The Frog Prince • Meetings with the Archangel • Parables and Portraits

Nonfiction A Mind at Home with Itself (with Byron Katie) • A Thousand Names for Joy (with Byron Katie) • Loving What Is (with Byron Katie) • The Gospel According to Jesus

Translations and Adaptations Catullus: Selected Poems • Beowulf • The Odyssey • The Iliad • Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus • The Second Book of the Tao • Gilgamesh • Bhagavad Gita • Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda • Genesis • Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke • A Book of Psalms • The Selected Poetry of Dan Pagis • Tao Te Ching • The Book of Job • The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (with Chana Bloch) • The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke • Letters to a Young Poet • The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge • The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke • T. Carmi and Dan Pagis: Selected Poems

Edited by Stephen Mitchell Question Your Thinking, Change the World: Quotations from Byron Katie • The Essence of Wisdom • Bestiary: An Anthology of Poems About Animals • Song of Myself • Into the Garden: A Wedding Anthology (with Robert Hass) • The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose • The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry • Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn

For Children The Ugly Duckling, by Hans Christian Andersen • Iron Hans • Genies, Meanies, and Magic Rings • The Tinderbox, by Hans Christian Andersen • The Wishing Bone and Other Poems • The Nightingale, by Hans Christian Andersen • Jesus: What He Really Said and Did • The Creation

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C AT U L L U S Selected Poems T R A N S L AT E D B Y

STEPHEN MITCHELL

New Haven and London

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Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Philip Hamilton McMillan of the Class of 1894, Yale College. Copyright © 2024 by Stephen Mitchell. All rights reserved. Th is book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Designed by Mary Valencia. Set in Minion Pro and Louize types by Motto Publishing Services. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2023944735 ISBN 978-0-300-27529-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Th is paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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In memoriam Richard Wilbur

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CONTENTS Introduction

1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 22 24 27 28 29 31 32 35 36 37 39 40 43 44 46

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59

ix 48 50 51 53 55 58 60 65 68a 70 72 75 76 79 81 83 85 86 87 91 92 95 96 99 101 104 107 109

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 81 83 85 87 89 91 93 95 97 99 101 103 105 107 109 111 113 115 117

119 ◆ Bibliography 141 Acknowledgments 143 Index of English First Lines 145 Index of Latin First Lines 147

Notes

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INTRODUCTION “The most elegant of poets,” the Roman writer Aulus Gellius called him. Tennyson wrote of “sweet Catullus,” “tenderest of Roman poets”; when he read the poems, “his finger moved from word to word, and he dwelt with intense satisfaction on the adequacy of the expression and of the sounds, on the mastery of the proper handling of quantity, and on the perfection of the art.” It could also be said that Catullus is the poet with the most testosterone and the foulest mouth, the sexiest poet who ever lived, the most affectionate. His poems, written in a now dead language more than two thousand years ago, are still vividly alive. Though he must have spent a great deal of time fine-tuning them, given their exquisite form, they read as if they had poured straight out of him. They are dense, subtle, witty, ardent, fearless, deeply uncensored, nasty (sometimes), petty (sometimes), and often so beautiful that, like Tennyson, you have to pause in your reading, rapt with admiration and delight. It’s especially his love poems that have earned readers’ admiration over the centuries; the joy and the savage self-inflicted torments he underwent in his “miserable, disastrous love affair” have been shaped into poems that for honesty and emotional power have few parallels in world literature; Catullus, wrote a distinguished literary critic, could make poetry out of anything; his diction, by turns colloquial, ironic, tender, obscene, magniloquent, exemplifies the freedom and flexibility that [our modern] poets . . . have aimed at; no English poet of comparable power—Marvell, for instance—has done so much within such seemingly casual structures. The wonder of these poems is that what seems so slight should be so strong; that the fragile circumstance of one man’s suffering and happiness should be transmuted into words so durably compacted. The objects and scenes of these little poems are as solidly “there” as Williams’s red wheelbarrow, and more depends on them. ix

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◆ Gaius Valerius Catullus lived from 84 to 54 (or possibly from 82 to 52) BCE during troubled times, the last years of the Roman Republic, when the country was descending into political violence, civil war, and mass executions. It was an age of almost unimaginable brutality, when leaders like the dictator Sulla could grant his soldiers permission to kill anyone in Rome at their pleasure and even created lists of proscribed people who could be murdered for their property without any consequences. (The chilling statement a century later by the emperor Caligula simply acknowledges a fact about dictators: “Remember—I can do anything I want, to anyone I want.”) We don’t know much about Catullus’s life. He was born in Verona, which at the time wasn’t in Italy but in Gallia Cisalpina (This Side of the Alps Gaul). His father was prominent enough to host Julius Caesar as visiting proconsul, and wealthy enough to own, in addition to the house in Verona, a villa at Sirmio, about twenty miles west of the town, and another villa near Tibur (present-day Tivoli), nineteen miles east of Rome. Catullus says that he took up poetry and sex at about the age of fifteen. At some point he moved from Verona to Rome, where his friends included the poets Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus, Gaius Helvius Cinna, and Publius Valerius Cato, all of whose works have disappeared almost without a trace. They valued grace, wit, and concision, and together they created a poetic movement, known as the New Poets, which changed Roman literature and led to Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and the elegiac poets of the next generation. From 57 to 56 BCE Catullus served on the staff of Gaius Memmius, the governor of Bithynia (northern Turkey), who was a poet himself and liked to be surrounded by wealthy young literary men with excellent social connections. (Memmius was Lucretius’s patron and the dedicatee of On the Nature of Things, but Catullus didn’t think much of him; Memmius, he wrote, had “fucked [him] over,” and Catullus gleefully called him the Latin equivalents of “scumbag,” “prick,” and “son of a bitch.”) Then, perhaps during Catullus’s service in Bithynia, his beloved brother died in Asia Minor, and the poet, devastated, visx

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ited his grave near Troy. Afterward, he spent some time in Verona, wrote more poems, teased his friends, dined with them, wrote invectives against his enemies and rivals, ended his unhappy love affair (or had it ended for him), and died or fell silent at the age of twenty-nine or thirty. Ah, that love affair! It has been the subject of more than one atrocious novel, and it has kept scholars guessing for five hundred years. Catullus gives his beloved the name Lesbia, possibly because the women of Lesbos had the reputation of being beautiful, certainly with a reference to the great Lesbian poet Sappho. Propertius, writing thirty years after Catullus’s death, says, This is what the writings of playful [or “lustful”] Catullus sang of, which made his Lesbia even more famous than Helen. Almost two hundred years later, Apuleius published her real name: Clodia. Scholars accept the identification, but it could apply to either of two sisters of the rabble-rousing populist demagogue Publius Clodius Pulcher since, according to Roman custom, both were named Clodia. Most scholars think that Catullus’s beloved was the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, a prominent politician and military commander who was consul in 60 BCE. She was a dozen years older than Catullus, related by birth and by marriage to two of the most ancient families in Rome, and was notorious for her love affairs. When Metellus Celer died in 59, a rumor flew about that Clodia had poisoned him. In the same year, she took Cicero’s protégé Marcus Caelius Rufus as her principal lover. When he left her three years later, she retaliated by having him prosecuted for vis, political violence—specifically for murdering an ambassador. Cicero got him acquitted. The story behind Cicero’s famous speech in defense of Caelius is the bitter enmity between Cicero and Clodia’s brother. When Clodius became tribune in 59, he passed laws that exiled Cicero from Italy and confiscated his property; armed gangs of Clodius’s thugs destroyed Cicero’s house in Rome and his villas in Tusculum and Formiae. This xi

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was one reason for the extended attack on Clodia in Cicero’s speech. The other was legal strategy: if Cicero could destroy her credibility as a witness by attacking her character, he would win his case. For Caelius is the apotheosis of slut-shaming. In it Cicero calls Clodia “the Palatine Medea,” “an impudent and promiscuous whore,” and a woman with “a headstrong and unbridled mind,” a rejected lover who instigated the lawsuit solely out of a desire for revenge. “I’m not saying anything now against this woman,” he tells the jurors toward the middle of his speech. “But suppose there were someone not like her, who prostitutes herself to every man, who always has an openly declared lover, who owns gardens, a townhouse, and a villa at [the fashionable resort of] Baiae, where every lecher goes back and forth as he pleases, who keeps young men and subsidizes their pocket money at her own expense—suppose there were a widow who lived permissively, a bold widow living shamelessly, a rich widow living extravagantly, a lecherous widow living like a whore—should I call it adultery if anyone greeted this woman a little too freely?” Cicero even slyly accuses her of incest with her brother: “I would [attack Caelius’s accusers] still more vigorously, if I didn’t have a quarrel with that woman’s husband—brother, I meant to say; I’m always making that mistake.” But we know nothing about Clodia from her own testimony; all we know is how Cicero and Catullus perceived her, plus a few basic facts. She was rich and powerful. She was very beautiful; Catullus made a point of that. Cicero agreed. In one of his letters he calls her “the OxEyed One” or “Lady Ox-Eyes”—namely, Juno, the tall, beautiful queen of the gods. And there are some details in For Caelius that aren’t necessarily prejudicial, or that would be prejudicial only to Romans of a strict puritanical character. Cicero mentions Clodia’s “pleasures, and loves, and adulteries, and Baiae, and doings on the seashore, and banquets, and revelry, and songs, and music parties, and water parties,” all of which, he said, were proofs of her depravity. But rather than judging her as “depraved,” we can see her more objectively as a woman with an intense sexual drive, the means to gratify it, and no interest in monogamy. In Catullus’s terms, this was a recipe for disaster. xii

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Since we don’t know the chronological order of the poems we have no idea of the shape of the love affair. For example, poem 51, which appears toward the end of the first section of his book, seems as if it must have been written at the beginning of the affair, whereas such despairing poems as 8, 11, and 76 imply that they were written at its end. But there is no certainty here; these three poems might have been written at a point, or points, in the relationship when the lovers had temporarily broken up, later to get back together, as in poem 107. Imposing a pre- or even a post-conceived order would only confuse things further. The Lesbia poems range from the ecstatic to the despairing, from the bedazzled to the abusive, from the marvelously tender to the drained and disgusted. Lesbia is “the woman who is dearer to me than myself, / my light, who makes it delicious to be alive,” “my dazzling goddess”— and these don’t sound like casual compliments; she really did seem to be coming from a larger world of exquisite beauty and fabulous abundance. Catullus was rich, cultured, and already a bit famous, but he was a provincial, and he would have been perceived by a Roman aristocrat whose family had wielded power for more than four centuries as greatly inferior in social status. What he said about his love—that no woman would ever be loved as deeply as he had loved Lesbia—may have seemed crazy and irrelevant to her. And what he wanted from the relationship may have seemed equally crazy: a love that would “last forever,” “to enjoy for the rest of our lives / the unbreakable bond of this our sacred friendship.” Catullus oscillates between hope and despair—between his desire for permanence and his awareness of its impossibility—and he must have spent a good deal of time in the mental space of poem 85, the great poem of erotic bafflement: I hate and I love. Perhaps you are wondering how this can be. I don’t know, but I feel it and am in torment. There is a peculiar moment in one of the poems not translated in this book when he claims to arrive at an uneasy tolerance of Clodia’s promiscuity: xiii

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And though she isn’t content to be with Catullus only, she’s discreet, and I can put up with her rare intrigues. Why be a boring nuisance like stupid, possessive men? Even Juno has often mastered her blazing rage at her husband’s betrayals, when she learns of all-lusting Jove’s many affairs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And anyway, we’re not married; her father’s hand never led her into a new house fragrant with wedding incense; but in the hush of night she gave me her sweet gifts, stolen from her own husband, from the man’s very lap. Well, it’s enough if she marks the days reserved for our loving with a white stone, which means that I’m still her favorite. It’s a strange passage in which Catullus becomes the queen of the gods—a sanitized version of Juno, to be sure, since by all accounts the goddess never once mastered her rage at her husband’s infidelities. But this kind of heartbroken toleration couldn’t have been stable. It must have been a purgatorial halt for him, a brief respite before he once again resumed his shuttle between heaven and hell. ◆ Though the love affair with Lesbia is at the center of the book, Catullus wrote a number of erotic poems addressed to other women, and to the modern reader he may seem to be vigorously heterosexual. But there are also erotic poems to or about boys. So was he bisexual? Roman categories about sexuality were different from ours, and at first the situation can be bewildering for the contemporary reader. In our culture, we categorize people according to whether they are attracted to the opposite or to the same sex or to both. For a Roman, the important criterion wasn’t the gender of your lover(s) but whether you were the penetrating or the penetrated partner. There was, as one scholar explains, a distinction that mattered crucially to the Romans, between the act of pedicatio [anal sex] or irrumatio [oral sex], which was not xiv

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in itself disgraceful, and submission to either form, which certainly was. That is, a male who willingly allowed penetration by another was treated with contempt, and one who was compelled to allow it was thereby humiliated. But the penetrator himself was neither demeaned nor disgraced; on the contrary, he had demonstrated his superiority and his masculinity by making another serve his pleasure. Catullus expressed his contempt for this male passive role when, in his bravest and most political poem, he called Julius Caesar a cinaedus, a slur that would have sounded to a Roman ear the way “faggot” sounds to us. The contempt is the meaning. ◆ Catullus’s poetry was known and appreciated for two centuries after his death; then it vanished for more than a thousand years, until a single manuscript miraculously surfaced in Verona at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Two copies were made from this manuscript before it was lost again: one of these is now at Oxford; the second was copied twice before it too disappeared; one of the copies ended up at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, the other at the Vatican library. The manuscripts consist of 116 poems (3 of them aren’t by Catullus), varying in length from 2 to 408 lines, in three sections, which may have been published as three separate scrolls: the first containing 57 poems in hendecasyllabics (eleven-syllable lines) and other meters (848 lines); the second, 4 long poems in various meters (795 lines); and the third, 52 poems in elegiac couplets, most of them quite short (646 lines). We don’t know whether the order of the poems was decided by the poet himself, wholly or in part, or by an editor after his death. The arrangement, roughly by meter, seems arbitrary and without any sense of chronology. As for the transmitted text, it contains more than a thousand errors and is sometimes unmetrical, meaningless, or both. Many lines have been rescued only by the insight of textual scholars from the Renaissance to the present day—“old, learned, respectable xv

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bald heads,” along with a number of young, equally learned, possibly not very respectable scholars with full heads of hair. ◆ I came to Catullus by way of Robert Frost, who always kept an edition of the poems by his bedside. It has been five decades since I first read “For Once, Then, Something,” Frost’s poem in hendecasyllabics, and I have been fascinated with it ever since. So when I turned my attention to translating Catullus, I tried to follow Frost’s example and find a way to appropriate hendecasyllabics into English. (Because English is accentual rather than quantitative like Latin, the accents furnish the beat.) I found the meter to be robust in English, close enough to our iambic pentameter to feel natural, yet different enough to give our listening ears a new kind of pleasure. I have also imitated the rhythms of the poems Catullus wrote in his other favorite meter, elegiac couplets—first the longer verse, a hexameter, then a kind of resolution in the more familiar pentameter that follows. With diction as with rhythm, I have tried to sound natural, to write in a language that felt genuine to me, neither stiffly formal nor vulgarly colloquial. It’s a given that when you’re translating a poem into a strict meter—when you’re trying to translate the music of the original as well as the meaning—you have to be freer than when you’re making a literal translation. But there is a deeper faithfulness than simple accuracy. There’s a place where, as in marriage, faithfulness and freedom are the same. As Frost famously said, poetry is what’s lost in translation. Once you accept that loss, though, you begin to see that in the gaps of what has disappeared there are new qualities that can happen: a rhythm that fits the meter but sounds as colloquial as ordinary speech, an image that suddenly lights up in a new way, an elegance that opens as the sounds of the English language configure and reconfigure themselves around the literal meaning. In a good translation, what is found makes up for what is lost. But why a selection? Why translate only half of the 113 poems— about a third of the total lines? Well, because I find many of the shorter xvi

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poems rather weak, and because the long poems at the center of the collection, despite their sporadic beauties, leave me cold. Besides, as one critic put it when writing about one of these long poems, “How then, it may be asked, should the poem be translated? The answer, quite simply, is that it should not. . . . There is no contemporary mode to which it belongs. . . . All that can be done is to . . . concentrate on those parts [of a poet’s work] which are alive today.” So you might say that my principle of selection was whether a poem spoke to me or not. In other words, I had no principle at all; I simply chose the poems that gave me the most pleasure—the ones I thought were the best.

xvii

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SELECTED POEMS

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1 Cui dono lepidum novum libellum arida modo pumice expolitum? Corneli, tibi: namque tu solebas meas esse aliquid putare nugas iam tum, cum ausus es unus Italorum omne aevum tribus explicare cartis doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis. quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli, qualecumque quod, patrona virgo, plus uno maneat perenne saeclo.

2

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1 Whom to dedicate this slim book of verse to, just now polished and inked with my revisions? You, Cornelius: since you used to think that these light things that I scribbled had some value, long ago, when alone among Italians you dared publish the annals of the world in three thick scrolls that contain your matchless learning. Please, then, welcome this book, which is as good as I could make it. (And please, O patron goddess, let it last, if you can, beyond one lifetime.)

3

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2 Passer, deliciae meae puellae, quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere, cui primum digitum dare appetenti et acris solet incitare morsus, cum desiderio meo nitenti carum nescioquid lubet iocari, ut solaciolum sui doloris, credo, ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor; tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem et tristis animi levare curas!

4

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2 Little sparrow, my girl’s delight and darling, whom she holds in her lap and sometimes offers, bright with longing, her fingertip to peck at, teases you and provokes you to bite harder, plays a dozen such sweet games, as (I think) she tries to lessen the pain of her desire— how I wish I could play with you as she does and bring ease to my heart’s ongoing torment!

5

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3 Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque et quantum est hominum venustiorum: passer mortuus est meae puellae, passer, deliciae meae puellae, quem plus illa oculis suis amabat. nam mellitus erat suamque norat ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem, nec sese a gremio illius movebat, sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc ad solam dominam usque pipiabat; qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum illuc, unde negant redire quemquam. at vobis male sit, malae tenebrae Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis: tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis (o factum male! o miselle passer!); vestra nunc opera meae puellae flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

6

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3 Mourn, oh mourn, you divinities of passion and all those who are sensitive to beauty: my girl’s sparrow is dead, her pretty playmate, whom she loved even more than her own eyes. For sweet as honey he was and knew his mistress just as well as a small girl knows her mother— would not fly from her lap but, gayly hopping here and there on her thighs, he would continue his melodious chirping, for her only. Now he walks down the dismal road to Hades, toward the country no traveler returns from. You foul shadows of death, a curse upon you! —vile devourers of all things glad and graceful, who have spirited off my pretty sparrow (reprehensible deed! unlucky creature!); it’s your fault that my darling’s lovely eyelids are puffed up and her eyes are red with weeping.

7

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5 Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis! soles occidere et redire possunt; nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum; dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus, illa ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus invidere possit cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

8

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5 My dear Lesbia, let’s just love each other and not bother our heads about the gossip spread about by old farts and busybodies. Suns can die and then rise new the next morning, but for us, when our little light has vanished, one vast night must be slept and slept forever. So come, sweetheart, and give me first a thousand kisses, then you might add a hundred others, then a thousand, and then another hundred. And then, once we have added tens of thousands, let’s go bankrupt and cancel the whole number, so that no one can cast a spell upon us when they learn we’ve enjoyed so many kisses.

9

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6 Flavi, delicias tuas Catullo, ni sint illepidae atque inelegantes, velles dicere nec tacere posses. verum nescioquid febriculosi scorti diligis: hoc pudet fateri. nam te non viduas iacere noctes nequiquam tacitum cubile clamat sertis ac Syrio fragrans olivo, pulvinusque peraeque et hic et ille attritus, tremulique quassa lecti argutatio inambulatioque. nam nil stupra valet, nihil, tacere. cur? non tam latera eff ututa pandas, ni tu quid facias ineptiarum. quare, quidquid habes boni malique, dic nobis. volo te ac tuos amores ad caelum lepido vocare versu.

10

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6 Come on, Flavius: if your girlfriend weren’t so uncouth, you would tell me all about her— everything, to the last detail. So she has got to be some infected little whore, and you’re ashamed to confess it. Your own silent bed cries out that you haven’t spent your nights there by yourself; it is reeking of sweet garlands and stale Syrian perfume, pillows squashed on rumpled sheets; and your bed frame shakes so wildly that it seems to careen across the floor tiles— oh no, nothing can keep your sex life quiet. Why? Because you are so fucked out, it’s clear that you’re involved in some major hanky-panky. So whatever you have to say, just say it, good or bad. I would like to sing your praises— hers as well—in a brief but charming poem.

11

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7 Quaeris quot mihi basiationes tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque. quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenae lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis oraclum Iovis inter aestuosi et Batti veteris sacrum sepulcrum, aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox, furtivos hominum vident amores; tam te basia multa basiare vesano satis et super Catullo est, quae nec pernumerare curiosi possint nec mala fascinare lingua.

12

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7 You ask, Lesbia, just how many kisses I require to satisfy my longing. Count the sands in the boundless Libyan desert that extends through Cyrenē, rich in spices, from the sweltering oracle of Ammon to the tomb where they buried old King Battus; count the stars when the night is clear and silent which look down on the furtive loves of humans: that’s the number of kisses that are needed to give peace to your poor, love-crazed Catullus, so that neither the snoops can ever count them nor the sorcerers curse us with that number.

13

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8 Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire, et quod vides perisse perditum ducas. fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles, cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla. ibi illa multa cum iocosa fiebant, quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat, fulsere vere candidi tibi soles. nunc iam illa non vult; tu quoque inpote, nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive, sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura. vale, puella. iam Catullus obdurat, nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam. at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla. scelesta, vae te! quae tibi manet vita? quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella? quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris? quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis? at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.

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8 Wretched Catullus, stop this crazy longing. Let go of her. She’s gone. She won’t come back. You had it good: your days were fi lled with sunshine; you used to go wherever the girl led you— that girl no one will ever love as you did. You had the best of times, the sweetest moments, and what you wanted she did not refuse. Yes, it was good: those days were fi lled with sunshine. But now she doesn’t want you, and there’s no changing that, poor madman. So forget her; don’t make yourself so wretched at her absence; stand firm and stay the course. What’s done is done. Goodbye, dear girl; Catullus will stand firm; he won’t run after you, won’t beg or plead, and you’ll be sorry soon, when no one wants you. What fate remains for you? How will you manage? Whom will you love? What man will say—and mean— that you’re his life, his soul, his peerless beauty? Whom will you kiss now? Whose lips will you nibble? But you, Catullus: stay the course. Stand firm.

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9 Verani, omnibus e meis amicis antistans mihi milibus trecentis, venistine domum ad tuos penates fratresque unanimos anumque matrem? venisti. o mihi nuntii beati! visam te incolumem audiamque Hiberum narrantem loca, facta, nationes, ut mos est tuus, applicansque collum iucundum os oculosque saviabor. o quantum est hominum beatiorum, quid me laetius est beatiusve?

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9 My Veranius, best of all my comrades, more delightful than even the most gifted, have you really come home at last, and are you safe and sound with your mother and your brothers? What good news! I am thrilled that you’ve rejoined us and can’t wait to lay eyes on you and hear you tell of Spain and its people, places, products with your usual charm, then draw you toward me for a kiss on your lovely lips and eyelids. Oh, of all the most blessèd men alive now, who can say he is happier than I am?

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10 Varus me meus ad suos amores visum duxerat e foro otiosum, scortillum, ut mihi tum repente visum est, non sane illepidum neque invenustum. huc ut venimus, incidere nobis sermones varii: in quibus, quid esset iam Bithynia; quo modo se haberet; ecquonam mihi profuisset aere. respondi, id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis nec praetoribus esse nec cohorti, cur quisquam caput unctius referret, praesertim quibus esset irrumator praetor, nec faceret pili cohortem. “at certe tamen,” inquiunt “quod illic natum dicitur esse, comparasti ad lecticam homines.” ego, ut puellae unum me facerem beatiorem, “non” inquam “mihi tam fuit maligne, ut, provincia quod mala incidisset, non possem octo homines parare rectos.” at mi nullus erat nec hic neque illic, fractum qui veteris pedem grabati in collo sibi collocare posset. hic illa, ut decuit cinaediorem, “quaeso” inquit mihi, “mi Catulle, paulum istos commoda; nam volo ad Serapim deferri.” “mane,” inquii puellae, “istud quod modo dixeram me habere, 18

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10 My friend Varus had found me in the Forum killing time, so he took me to his girlfriend. First impression: a sassy little bimbo, not inelegant and not unattractive. When they grilled me on this and that, the latest from Bithynia, what I thought about it, how much money I’d made there as a soldier, I replied with the truth: that there was no way in that country to line your pockets, even for the governor; no one there is any richer when he comes back, particularly with a son of a bitch as boss, who doesn’t give a shit for his officers. “Well, be that as it may,” they responded, “still, you must have brought back some of that country’s leading export: strong young slaves who can carry a large litter.” Then I, trying to make a good impression on the girl and pretend that I was one of the rare lucky ones, said, “I actually did quite well: though I’d drawn a crappy province, I returned with, um, eight tall strapping fellows.” (The truth was, I had not a single slave boy, neither here nor abroad, to carry even one cracked leg of a broken-down old pallet.) Then the rude little slut said, “Please, Catullus, dear man, lend me those slaves of yours; I need to hurry off to the Temple of Serapis.” “Wait a minute,” I said. “That thing about the 19

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fugit me ratio: meus sodalis— Cinna est Gaius—is sibi paravit. verum, utrum illius an mei, quid ad me? utor tam bene quam mihi pararim. sed tu insulsa male et molesta vivis, per quam non licet esse neglegentem.”

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litter men: when I told you they were mine, I wasn’t thinking, my tongue slipped, they belong to my dear friend (do you know him?) Gaius Cinna, though who owns them is not of much importance; I can borrow them any time I want to. But the point, you ill-mannered little dimwit, is to chill out and not expect perfection when a fellow is careless in his recall.”

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11 Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli, sive in extremos penetrabit Indos, litus ut longe resonante Eoa tunditur unda, sive in Hyrcanos Arabasve molles, seu Sagas sagittiferosve Parthos, sive quae septemgeminus colorat aequora Nilus, sive trans altas gradietur Alpes, Caesaris visens monimenta magni, Gallicum Rhenum horribilesque ultimosque Britannos, omnia haec, quaecumque feret voluntas caelitum, temptare simul parati, pauca nuntiate meae puellae non bona dicta. cum suis vivat valeatque moechis, quos simul complexa tenet trecentos, nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium ilia rumpens; nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem, qui illius culpa cecidit velut prati ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam tactus aratro est.

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11 Furius, Aurelius, future comrades, whether we will travel to the far Indies where the shore is pounded by the East Ocean’s thundering breakers or to Persia, to the soft, pampered Arabs, or to savage Scythia with its bowmen, to the plains the seven-mouthed Nile River dyes with its mud flow, or to climb the towering Alpine ranges, see the brilliant proof of great Caesar’s triumphs, cross the Channel, visit the horrid Britons stuck at the world’s end— since you both are ready to do all this or any task the will of the gods may dictate, take a message now to my former girlfriend, brief and unpleasant: tell her that I wish her a happy life with all three hundred studs whom she fucks at one go, truly loving none of them but forever draining them dry, nor can she ever count on me as she used to: it’s her fault my love is now dead, a flower fallen at the edge of a field, the plowshare’s blade slicing through it.

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13 Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus, si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam cenam, non sine candida puella et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis. haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster, cenabis bene—nam tui Catulli plenus sacculus est aranearum. sed contra accipies meros amores seu quid suavius elegantiusve est: nam unguentum dabo quod meae puellae donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque, quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

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13 You’ll dine well at my house, my dear Fabullus, someday soon, if the gods permit, and if you bring along a big meal, a pretty woman, some fine wine, and your fabled wit to keep us bubbling over with laughter. If, I tell you, you bring these when you come, my charming comrade, you’ll dine well—for the purse of your Catullus has no coins in it, only air and cobwebs. In return, I will spoil you with friendship, and I’ll offer you something even sweeter: perfume given by Venus to my girl. Just take a sniff, and you’ll ask the gods to change you, my dear friend, into one enormous nostril.

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14 Ni te plus oculis meis amarem, iucundissime Calve, munere isto odissem te odio Vatiniano: nam quid feci ego quidve sum locutus, cur me tot male perderes poetis? isti di mala multa dent clienti, qui tantum tibi misit impiorum. quod si, ut suspicior, hoc novum ac repertum munus dat tibi Sulla litterator, non est mi male, sed bene ac beate, quod non dispereunt tui labores. di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum! quem tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum misti continuo, ut die periret Saturnalibus optimo dierum! non non hoc tibi, salse, sic abibit. nam, si luxerit, ad librariorum curram scrinia; Caesios, Aquinos, Suffenum, omnia colligam venena, ac te his suppliciis remunerabor. vos hinc interea valete abite illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis, saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae.

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14 If I didn’t adore you, dearest Calvus, then because of the present you just gave me I would hate you, with a Vatinian hatred. What mean thing have I said or done to you, to make you plague me with all these putrid poets? May the gods send misfortunes to the client who inflicted such dreadful stuff upon you! But if, as I suspect, this new collection came to you from that silly teacher Sulla, I don’t have a complaint; I am delighted that you finally got a fee from that one. Great gods, what an abominable booklet! And you sent it at once to your Catullus to destroy him a day before the joys of Saturnalia. No, you cunning rascal, this is something you’ll never get away with; I’ll run out to the bookstalls in the morning and I’ll choose some Aquinus, Caesius, Suffenus—every pathetic book I find there— and repay you with them for these small tortures. In the meantime, goodbye, farewell, return to wherever it is you learned your lousy rhythms, you sad blights of our age, you worst of poets!

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15 Commendo tibi me ac meos amores, Aureli. veniam peto pudenter, ut, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti, quod castum expeteres et integellum, conserves puerum mihi pudice, non dico a populo—nihil veremur istos, qui in platea modo huc modo illuc in re praetereunt sua occupati— verum a te metuo tuoque pene infesto pueris bonis malisque. quem tu qua lubet, ut lubet, moveto quantum vis, ubi erit foris paratum; hunc unum excipio, ut puto, pudenter. quod si te mala mens furorque vecors in tantam impulerit, sceleste, culpam, ut nostrum insidiis caput lacessas, a tum te miserum malique fati! quem attractis pedibus patente porta percurrent raphanique mugilesque.

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15 I am going to trust my boyfriend to your care, Aurelius, and I ask this favor: if you, deep in your heart, have ever wanted to protect what is innocent and guileless, you will keep the sweet child untouched, for my sake. I’m not speaking about the crowds in public; I don’t fear any harm from strangers walking back and forth as they go about their business. No: it’s you and your penis I’m afraid of, that fat menace to all boys, plain or pretty. Go ahead, you can whip it out as needed, where you’d like (it is always primed for action); just exempt this one boy—that’s all I ask for. And if spite, or some nasty impulse, drives you to betray me in this, you selfish bastard, you will bitterly rue the day you crossed me, ankles bound and your anus reamed with radishes and mullets, their scales as sharp as razors.

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22 Suffenus iste, Vare, quem probe nosti, homo est venustus et dicax et urbanus, idemque longe plurimos facit versus. puto esse ego illi milia aut decem aut plura perscripta, nec sic ut fit in palimpsesto relata: cartae regiae novae libri, novi umbilici, lora rubra, membranae, derecta plumbo et pumice omnia aequata. haec cum legas tu, bellus ille et urbanus Suffenus unus caprimulgus aut fossor rursus videtur: tantum abhorret ac mutat. hoc quid putemus esse? qui modo scurra aut siquid hac re scitius videbatur, idem inficeto est inficetior rure, simul poemata attigit, neque idem umquam aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit: tam gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur. nimirum idem omnes fallimur, neque est quisquam quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum possis. suus cuique attributus est error; sed non videmus manticae quod in tergo est.

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22 Oh, speaking of Suffenus, whom you know quite well, dear Varus: he is charming, witty, sophisticated, and he writes more long poems than anybody else: there have to be ten thousand of them, maybe more, not written out as drafts on scrap papyrus as we do, but on sheets of royal quarto, new rolls, new knobs, new thongs of scarlet leather, parchment wrappers, pages ruled with lead, then polished off and smoothed with pumice stone. But read him, and this fashionable man becomes a mere goat milker or ditch digger, so unlike what he seemed to us, so changed. What’s going on here? How can such a clever fellow suddenly turn into a dope who’s coarser than the coarsest country bumpkin the moment he sits down to write a poem? And yet he’s never happier than when he’s writing verse; he hugs himself, he thinks he’s awesome, the gods’ gift to Roman culture. Ah well, aren’t we all like that? There’s no one who isn’t a Suffenus in some sense; everyone has a knapsack of his faults behind his back, but none of us can see it.

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24 O qui flosculus es Iuventiorum, non horum modo, sed quot aut fuerunt aut posthac aliis erunt in annis, mallem divitias Midae dedisses isti, cui neque servus est neque arca, quam sic te sineres ab illo amari. “quid? non est homo bellus?” inquies. est: sed bello huic neque servus est neque arca. hoc tu quam lubet abice elevaque: nec servum tamen ille habet neque arcam.

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24 Little flower, most beautiful of all the great Juventius clan, and not now only but of all who have ever lived or will live, I would rather you gave the wealth of Midas to that fellow with neither slaves nor money than allow him to be your chief admirer. “Isn’t he a nice gentleman?” you ask me. Yes he is, but he has no slaves or money. Minimize or dismiss it all you want to: still, the fellow has neither slaves nor money.

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27 Minister vetuli puer Falerni, inger mi calices amariores, ut lex Postumiae iubet magistrae ebriosa acino ebriosioris. at vos quo lubet hinc abite, lymphae, vini pernicies, et ad severos migrate. hic merus est Thyonianus.

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27 Old Falernian: slave boy, keep on pouring, fi ll my cup with the powerful dark nectar, as Postumia, mistress of our banquet, drunker now than these boozy grapes, has ordered. And you, water, the ruin of fine drinking, stand up now and begone, get lost, go find some prim old farts to hang out with. Here the revels are beholden to Bacchus undiluted.

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28 Pisonis comites, cohors inanis, aptis sarcinulis et expeditis, Verani optime tuque mi Fabulle, quid rerum geritis? satisne cum isto vappa frigoraque et famem tulistis? ecquidnam in tabulis patet lucelli expensum, ut mihi, qui meum secutus praetorem refero datum lucello? o Memmi, bene me ac diu supinum tota ista trabe lentus irrumasti. sed, quantum video, pari fuistis casu: nam nihilo minore verpa farti estis. pete nobiles amicos! at vobis mala multa di deaeque dent, opprobria Romuli Remique.

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28 Good Veranius and my dear Fabullus, Piso’s aides, with no money in your pockets, baggage empty of all but the essential— how’s it going? Already had your fi ll of cold and hunger in service to that scumbag? Check your ledgers: do they show any income? Mine show only expenses. When I finished my year’s service, I ended up with zero. You prick, Memmius—you just fucked me over, stuck yourself in my mouth and coolly climaxed. Now you two, I can see, are in the same damn situation, your mouths stuffed by stiff peckers. We do well to court big shots, people tell us. But I say, they can go to hell, those assholes, those disgraces to Romulus and Remus.

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29 Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati, nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo, Mamurram habere quod Comata Gallia habebat ante et ultima Britannia? cinaede Romule, haec videbis et feres? et ille nunc superbus et superfluens perambulabit omnium cubilia, ut albulus columbus aut Adoneus? cinaede Romule, haec videbis et feres? es impudicus et vorax et aleo. eone nomine, imperator unice, fuisti in ultima occidentis insula, ut ista vestra diff ututa mentula ducenties comesset aut trecenties? quid est alid sinistra liberalitas? parum expatravit an parum helluatus est? paterna prima lancinata sunt bona, secunda praeda Pontica, inde tertia Hibera, quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus: nunc Gallicae timetur et Brittanicae. quid hunc, malum, fovetis? aut quid hic potest nisi uncta devorare patrimonia? eone nomine, urbis o potissimi socer generque, perdidistis omnia?

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29 Unless you’re shameless, ravenous, foolhardy, how can you stand to look on while Mamurra plunders far-off Britain and Provence? You faggot, Caesar, can you bear to watch this? And will that man—so arrogant, so fi lthy rich—go sleep with every wife in Rome because he’s now the favorite son of Venus? You faggot, Caesar, can you bear to watch this? Was it for this that Rome’s great general conquered the farthest island of the west, so that this fucked-out prick might squander twenty or thirty millions? Isn’t your largesse grossly misplaced, and hasn’t your star pupil wasted enough on gluttony and lust? First he blew through his own inheritance, then the loot from Pontus, then from Spain. (The gold-rich Tagus River is a witness.) Now everyone’s afraid he’ll do the same in Gaul and Britain. Why the hell do you two— you and Pompey—coddle him this way? What good is he, except to swallow fortunes? Was it for this, O heroes and fond in-laws, that you’ve brought desolation to our land?

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31 Paene insularum, Sirmio, insularumque ocelle, quascumque in liquentibus stagnis marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus, quam te libenter quamque laetus inviso, vix mi ipse credens Thyniam atque Bithynos liquisse campos et videre te in tuto. o quid solutis est beatius curis, cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum, desideratoque acquiescimus lecto? hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis. salve, o venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude gaudente, vosque lucidae lacus undae ridete quidquid est domi cachinnorum.

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31 Sirmio, with what joy I have returned, bright pearl of all peninsulas and islands, whether the gods surround them with clear lakes or the vast sea. How glad I am to be here, not quite believing that I’ve really left Bithynia and have finished the long journey. What greater blessing can we feel than when the mind at last lays down its heavy burdens and, weary of long travel, we come home and sink into the bed we have so longed for? This alone makes our hardships worth the trouble. So greetings, lovely Sirmio; rejoice in your owner’s joy; and you, dear sparkling waters, echo with all your laughter on the shore.

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32 Amabo, mea dulcis ipsimilla, meae deliciae, mei lepores, iube ad te veniam meridiatum. et si iusseris, illud adiuvato, ne quis liminis obseret tabellam, neu tibi lubeat foras abire, sed domi maneas paresque nobis novem continuas fututiones. verum si quid ages, statim iubeto: nam pransus iaceo et satur supinus pertundo tunicamque palliumque.

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32 Please, sweet lady, my charmer, my enchantment, my delight, my delicious, clever darling, let me come for the afternoon siesta. Just make sure that the door’s unlocked, and don’t go anywhere for a stroll, not even briefly, but stay home and prepare yourself for me and nine delirious bouts of nonstop fucking. (If you’re busy, then let me come right now: I’m lying down after breakfast, going crazy, punching holes through my underwear and tunic.)

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35 Poetae tenero, meo sodali, velim Caecilio, papyre, dicas Veronam veniat, Novi relinquens Comi moenia Lariumque litus: nam quasdam volo cogitationes amici accipiat sui meique. quare, si sapiet, viam vorabit, quamvis candida milies puella euntem revocet, manusque collo ambas iniciens roget morari. quae nunc, si mihi vera nuntiantur, illum deperit impotente amore: nam quo tempore legit incohatam Dindymi dominam, ex eo misellae ignes interiorem edunt medullam. ignosco tibi, Sapphica puella musa doctior: est enim venuste Magna Caecilio incohata Mater.

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35 Would you please, O papyrus that I write on, tell Caecilius, my dear friend, the tender lyric poet, to leave his lakefront house in Novum Comum and travel to Verona: I just want him to hear some quite discerning criticisms sent in by a good comrade. If he’s sensible, he’ll devour the distance, though his mistress should call him back a thousand times and throw her white arms around his neck and beg him not to depart. (From all the rumors, she is madly in love with him; since reading his new hymn that’s addressed to the Great Mother, love’s hot flames have consumed the poor thing’s marrow. I don’t blame you, dear girl, whose taste in poems I have heard is at least as fine as Sappho’s; it is true that they’re perfectly enchanting, the first sections of this unfinished classic.)

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36 Annales Volusi, cacata carta, votum solvite pro mea puella. nam sanctae Veneri Cupidinique vovit, si sibi restitutus essem desissemque truces vibrare iambos, electissima pessimi poetae scripta tardipedi deo daturam infelicibus ustulanda lignis, et hoc pessima se puella vidit iocose lepide vovere divis. nunc, o caeruleo creata ponto, quae sanctum Idalium Uriosque apertos quaeque Ancona Cnidumque harundinosam colis quaeque Amathunta quaeque Golgos quaeque Dyrrachium Hadriae tabernam, acceptum face redditumque votum, si non illepidum neque invenustum est. at vos interea venite in ignem, pleni ruris et inficetiarum annales Volusi, cacata carta.

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36 Hey, Volusius’ Annals (yes, I’m talking to your hundreds of pages smeared with bullshit), go accomplish the vow made by my girl to holy Venus, that if I patched things up and left off lobbing my fierce invectives at her, she would celebrate my return by torching the worst things by “the worst of poets,” make them offerings to the gimpy god of fire. My sly rascal, the worst of girls, intended this celestial vow to stir up mischief. Well then, goddess of love and lust and beauty— O you, born of the sea foam, who inhabit holy temples and altars in Ancona, in Idalium and in reedy Cnidus, in Palaiaphos, Urios, and Golgi, and Dyrrachium’s Adriatic tavern— mark her vow as received and now accomplished, and not lacking in charm or in good humor. Now it’s time for the fire to consume you, pages stinking of ignorance and crudeness, you, Volusius’ Annals, smeared with bullshit.

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37 Salax taberna vosque contubernales, a pilleatis nona fratribus pila, solis putatis esse mentulas vobis, solis licere, quidquid est puellarum, confutuere et putare ceteros hircos? an, continenter quod sedetis insulsi centum an ducenti, non putatis ausurum me una ducentos irrumare sessores? atqui putate: namque totius vobis frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam. puella nam mi, quae meo sinu fugit, amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla, pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata, consedit istic. hanc boni beatique omnes amatis, et quidem, quod indignum est, omnes pusilli et semitarii moechi; tu praeter omnes, une de capillatis, cuniculosae Celtiberiae fi li, Egnati, opaca quem bonum facit barba et dens Hibera defricatus urina.

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37 Lecherous patrons of the sleazy tavern nine posts down from the Temple of the Twins, are you the only men endowed with pricks here, the only ones allowed to fuck the ladies while we are all sent home because we stink like rutting goats? O you pathetic jackoffs in long lines of a hundred or two hundred, you think I wouldn’t dare to stuff your mouths with my own prick—the whole repulsive crew? Well, think again! In fact, I’ll just go scrawl the front of your disgraceful tavern with a hundred big fat hard-ons, since my girl, the lovely one who fled from my embraces, a girl no one will ever love as I did, for whose sake I have rushed into so many pointless fights, has set up shop here, in this shabby dive. They lust for her, not only the rich and wellborn, but, to her disgrace, every last small-time back-street punk in town; and you above them all, Egnatius, O son of Spain—land of the soft-furred rabbits— so proud of your long hair, your thick black beard, and dazzling teeth, brushed white with Spanish piss.

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39 Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes, renidet usque quaque. si ad rei ventum est subsellium, cum orator excitat fletum, renidet ille; si ad pii rogum fili lugetur, orba cum flet unicum mater, renidet ille; quidquid est, ubicumque est, quodcumque agit, renidet: hunc habet morbum, neque elegantem, ut arbitror, neque urbanum. quare monendum est mihi, bone Egnati. si urbanus esses aut Sabinus aut Tiburs aut pinguis Umber aut obesus Etruscus aut Lanuvinus ater atque dentatus aut Transpadanus, ut meos quoque attingam, aut quilubet, qui puriter lavit dentes, tamen renidere usque quaque te nollem: nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est. nunc Celtiber ; Celtiberia in terra, quod quisque minxit, hoc sibi solet mane dentem atque russam defricare gingivam; ut, quo iste vester expolitior dens est, hoc te amplius bibisse praedicet loti.

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39 Egnatius, because he is so proud of his white teeth, is always, always smiling. If he attends a trial, to support a friend accused, and the defense attorney brings the whole audience to tears, he smiles; if he attends a funeral and a mother wails for her only son, he smiles; whatever’s happening, wherever he may be, he smiles; oh, it’s a real disease with him, a trait not only vulgar but obscene. So here’s some free advice, Egnatius: if you were Roman, Sabine, Tiburtine, or a plump Umbrian, or a stout Etruscan, or a dark-skinned, bright-toothed Lanuvian, or Transpadane (to mention my own people), or anyone who washed his teeth with water— even then, I’d tell you not to smile on all occasions, since it looks so foolish: nothing’s sillier than a silly grin. As it is, you’re a Spaniard, and in Spain the natives brush their teeth and rub their gums with last night’s piss, so that the more resplendent your teeth are, the more piss we know you’ve swallowed.

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40 Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Raude, agit praecipitem in meos iambos? quis deus tibi non bene advocatus vecordem parat excitare rixam? an ut pervenias in ore vulgi? quid vis? qualubet esse notus optas? eris, quandoquidem meos amores cum longa voluisti amare poena.

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40 What delusion has driven you, poor Raudus, headlong into the fury of this poem? What god, sloppily called upon, will stir up some ridiculous fight between us? Are you doing this to be famous, so that everybody rolls your sweet name around their palate? And they will: since you choose to love my darling, you’ll be ridiculed, far beyond your lifetime.

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43 Salve, nec minimo puella naso nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis nec longis digitis nec ore sicco nec sane nimis elegante lingua. decoctoris amica Formiani, ten provincia narrat esse bellam? tecum Lesbia nostra comparatur? o saeclum insapiens et infacetum!

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43 People say that you’re pretty, Ameana, though your nose is too long, your feet undainty, eyes dull, fingers too thick, and when you open your wet lips, there’s a tongue without refinement. Concubine of that bankrupt prick Mamurra, do the yokels compare you with our truly stunning Lesbia? Oh this age—this tasteless, coarse, unmannerly, stupid age we live in!

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44 O funde noster seu Sabine seu Tiburs (nam te esse Tiburtem autumant, quibus non est cordi Catullam laedere; at quibus cordi est, quovis Sabinum pignore esse contendunt), sed seu Sabine sive verius Tiburs, fui libenter in tua suburbana villa, malamque pectore expuli tussim, non inmerenti quam mihi meus venter, dum sumptuosas appeto, dedit, cenas: nam, Sestianus dum volo esse conviva, orationem in Antium petitorem plenam veneni et pestilentiae legi. hic me gravedo frigida et frequens tussis quassavit usque, dum in tuum sinum fugi, et me recuravi otioque et urtica. quare refectus maximas tibi grates ago, meum quod non es ulta peccatum. nec deprecor iam, si nefaria scripta Sesti recepso, quin gravedinem et tussim non mi, sed ipsi Sestio ferat frigus, qui tunc vocat me, cum malum librum legi.

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44 My little farmstead, Sabine, Tiburtine (they swear that you’re in Tibur, those who don’t want to annoy Catullus; those who do will keep insisting that you’re merely Sabine), but whether you are Sabine or you’re more accurately Tiburtine, I spent a nice week in your villa, convalescing from a bad cough, brought on (it serves me right) because my belly lusts for sumptuous feasts, since in my wish to dine with Sestius I was obliged to read his frigid speech attacking Antius in his run for office, a speech chock-full of pestilence and poison. At once a shivering cold and a harsh cough shook me till I retreated to your bosom and cured myself completely, with a diet of idleness and nettle tea. Restored, I thank you for not punishing my error. From now on, if I’m ever at all tempted to unscroll any diatribes he’s written, I give my full permission for their chill to bring a cold and cough—though not to me: to Sestius, who only asks me on condition that I read his dreadful garbage.

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46 Iam ver egelidos refert tepores, iam caeli furor aequinoctialis iucundis Zephyri silescit auris. linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, campi Nicaeaeque ager uber aestuosae: ad claras Asiae volemus urbes. iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari, iam laeti studio pedes vigescunt. o dulces comitum valete coetus, longe quos simul a domo profectos diversae varie viae reportant.

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46 Springtime now has returned with its mild weather; now soft winds from the west appear, to silence March’s skies and their raging storms. Catullus, take your leave of the Trojan plains, the fertile fields and meadows of sweltering Nicea; let’s dash off now to Asia’s brilliant cities. Now my heart is impatient, trembles, yearns to get away, and my feet start tapping, tapping. So goodbye to my crew of dear companions; though we made the long trip from Rome together, each of us will go back on his own journey.

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48 Mellitos oculos tuos, Iuventi, si quis me sinat usque basiare, usque ad milia basiem trecenta; nec mi umquam videar satur futurus, non si densior aridis aristis sit nostrae seges osculationis.

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48 If you only would let me kiss your eyelids, honey-sweet, my Juventius, I’d go on kissing them, and I wouldn’t stop and wouldn’t ever think that I’d had enough, not even if the harvest of kisses grew enormous, thicker packed than a field of ripened wheat stalks.

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50 Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi multum lusimus in meis tabellis, ut convenerat esse delicatos: scribens versiculos uterque nostrum ludebat numero modo hoc modo illoc, reddens mutua per iocum atque vinum. atque illinc abii tuo lepore incensus, Licini, facetiisque, ut nec me miserum cibus iuvaret nec somnus tegeret quiete ocellos, sed toto indomitus furore lecto versarer, cupiens videre lucem, ut tecum loquerer simulque ut essem. at defessa labore membra postquam semimortua lectulo iacebant, hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci, ex quo perspiceres meum dolorem. nunc audax cave sis, precesque nostras, oramus, cave despuas, ocelle, ne poenas Nemesis reposcat a te. est vemens dea; laedere hanc caveto.

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50 What great fun it was yesterday, dear Calvus, when we scribbled those verses on my tablets (we’d agreed to be more than just suggestive)— scalding verses, and for our own amusement, playing now with this meter, now with that one, improvising on themes set by the other, laughing hard, as we wrote and drained our wine cups. When I left, I was burning with your brilliance; food could give me no ease, nor could I rest my eyes in sleep, but unsettled, flushed, I tossed and turned all night, as I longed for daylight, so that once again we could spend some time together. Afterward, when my aching limbs just lay there, half-dead, under the covers, I composed this little poem addressed to you, dear fellow, so that you could appreciate my anguish. Well then, light of my eyes, accept this plea, lest Lady Nemesis punish your refusal. She’s a merciless goddess. Don’t offend her.

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51 Ille mi par esse deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te, Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi

lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus flamma demanat, sonitu suopte tintinant aures, gemina teguntur lumina nocte.

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51 That man truly seems to me like a god—or even more (if such things can be imagined)— who is sitting close to you, spellbound, as he watches and hears you sweetly laughing. I am bereft of mind, of all sense, lovesick me: for the very instant that I see you, Lesbia, there’s no voice left inside my mouth, my tongue feels frozen stiff, and a subtle fire flows down through my body, my ears start ringing, night descends upon me and leaves my eyes enveloped in darkness.

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53 Risi nescio quem modo e corona, qui, cum mirifice Vatiniana meus crimina Calvus explicasset, admirans ait haec manusque tollens: “di magni, salaputium disertum!”

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53 I just had a good laugh when someone spoke up from the crowd that was watching in the courtroom: when my Calvus announced the accusations, wonderfully explained, against Vatinius, this man said, with his hands held high in wonder, “Great gods! that little shrimp can really orate!”

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55 Oramus, si forte non molestum est, demonstres ubi sint tuae tenebrae. te in Campo quaesivimus minore, te in Circo, te in omnibus libellis, te in templo summi Iovis sacrato. in Magni simul ambulatione femellas omnes, amice, prendi, quas vultu vidi tamen sereno. †avelte† (sic usque flagitabam): “Camerium mihi, pessimae puellae!” quaedam inquit, nudum reduc “en hic in roseis latet papillis.” sed te iam ferre Herculei labos est; tanto te in fastu negas, amice. dic nobis ubi sis futurus, ede audacter, committe, crede luci. nunc te lacteolae tenant puellae? si linguam clauso tenes in ore, fructus proicies amoris omnes. verbosa gaudet Venus loquella. vel, si vis, licet obseres palatum, dum vestri sim particeps amoris.

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55 Tell me, please (I am asking you politely), where you are. Are you hiding for a reason? I’ve been searching for you all day, all over, going round to the park, the Circus, every bookstall, even to Jupiter’s great temple. And at Pompey’s new colonnade I cornered all the hookers, but on them all—blank faces. I lost patience and said, “You wicked ladies, give him back to me; give back my Camerius!” (One whore lowered her dress and bared her bosom. “Here: he’s hiding between my rosy nipples.”) These days, tracking you down’s an almost Herculean labor; it’s just too hard to find you since you’ve cut us all off without a scruple. Come on, out with it! Tell me where you’re hiding! Bring it into the daylight! Tell me, tell me— are you still in the clutches of those milk-white ladies? Friend, if you keep your tongue so muted, you’ll be wasting the benefits of passion: Venus favors our openness, our frankness. I don’t mind if you keep your love a secret, deep and dark, from your other friends. Just tell me!

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58 Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa, illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, nunc in quadriviis et angiportis glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.

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58 Our fine Lesbia, whom Catullus worshipped, that girl, Caelius, whom he loved so deeply, even more than himself and his own family, now gives handjobs in crossroads and back alleys to the decadent progeny of Remus.

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60 Num te leaena montibus Libystinis aut Scylla latrans infima inguinum parte tam mente dura procreavit ac taetra ut supplicis vocem in novissimo casu contemptam haberes, a nimis fero corde?

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60 Was it a lioness from the Libyan mountains, or Scylla barking from her groin, that whelped you without a heart and with a mind so cruel that you could scorn the plea a suppliant made to you from the depths of his despair?

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65 Etsi me assiduo defectum cura dolore sevocat a doctis, Hortale, virginibus, nec potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus mens animi, tantis fluctuat ipsa malis— namque mei nuper Lethaeo in gurgite fratris pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem, Troia Rhoeteo quem subter litore tellus ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis.

numquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, aspiciam posthac? at certe semper amabo, semper maesta tua carmina morte canam, qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris Daulias, absumpti fata gemens Ityli.— sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Hortale, mitto haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, ne tua dicta vagis nequiquam credita ventis effluxisse meo forte putes animo, ut missum sponsi furtivo munere malum procurrit casto virginis e gremio, quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum, dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur, atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu, huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.

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65 Although I’m worn out, Hortalus, by continual grief, and sorrow has cut me off from the inspiration I love, and I can’t bring forth the lines that are the Muses’ sweet offspring, so overwhelmed have I been by the worst misfortune: my dear brother just stepped into the river Lethe and oblivion’s waves lapped over his pale feet, and so he was torn from my sight, and below the beach at Rhoeteum the dirt of Troy lies heavy upon his flesh (Is it true that I’ll never speak to you, never hear you again, never again set eyes upon you, my brother, who were dearer to me than life? But surely I’ll always love you, always write with a sorrow steeped in your death, like the songs the nightingale sings under the thick-shadowed branches as she laments the fate of her firstborn, Itys)— still, in the midst of such sorrow, Hortalus, I’m sending you these verses of Callimachus I’ve translated, in case you should imagine that your request has been thrown to the passing winds and has wholly slipped from my mind, just as a furtive apple, sent by the boy she loves, drops from a young girl’s bosom, for she has forgotten she hid it under her dress, unfortunate child, and her mother walks in suddenly, she stands up, and the apple is shaken out, and it falls and goes rolling along the floor, while a guilty blush spreads over her downcast face.

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68a Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acerbo conscriptum hoc lacrimis mittis epistolium, naufragum ut eiectum spumantibus aequoris undis sublevem et a mortis limine restituam, quem neque sancta Venus molli requiescere somno desertum in lecto caelibe perpetitur, nec veterum dulci scriptorum carmine Musae oblectant, cum mens anxia pervigilat: id gratum est mihi, me quoniam tibi dicis amicum, muneraque et Musarum hinc petis et Veneris. sed tibi ne mea sint ignota incommoda, Manli, neu me odisse putes hospitis officium, accipe quis merser fortunae fluctibus ipse, ne amplius a misero dona beata petas. tempore quo primum vestis mihi tradita pura est, iucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret, multa satis lusi: non est dea nescia nostri, quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem. sed totum hoc studium luctu fraterna mihi mors abstulit. o misero frater adempte mihi, tu mea tu moriens fregisti commoda, frater, tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus; omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra quae tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor. cuius ego interitu tota de mente fugavi haec studia atque omnes delicias animi. quare, quod scribis Veronae turpe Catullo esse, quod hic quisquis de meliore nota 76

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68a I have your letter before me, its words stained by your tears, as you tell me that you’ve been crushed by a bitter fortune— Help me, lift me up from the ground where I lie shipwrecked, belched forth by the foaming waves, more dead than alive, for holy Venus denies me the blessings of gentle sleep, while I endure in a lonely bed, forsaken, no longer finding delight in the songs of the old Greek poets, for my anxious mind keeps racing and gives me no peace— and I was pleased to get it, because you called me your friend and turned to me for new poems, especially love poems. But I have my own grief, Manlius, and so that you may not think that I’ve neglected the duty I owe as your guest, listen to how the waves of misfortune have crashed upon me, and don’t ask for poems that only the happy can write. From the day when I was allowed to wear the toga of manhood, when my green youth was in its flowering springtime, often I played at love; I’m not unknown to the goddess who mixes a bitter sweetness in with her cares; but grief at my brother’s death has robbed me of all my ardor for love and poems. (O brother unfairly torn from my life, when you died you left me miserable—shattered— and now our whole family is buried along with you; for every one of our joys has perished with you, the joys that your sweet love had nurtured while you were alive.) Now I have banished this ardor totally from my mind, renouncing all the pleasure of writing poems. And so, when you write, It’s disgraceful for you to be staying, Catullus, far off in Verona, while every young man in the in-crowd 77

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frigida deserto tepefactet membra cubili, id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserum est. ignosces igitur si, quae mihi luctus ademit, haec tibi non tribuo munera, cum nequeo. nam, quod scriptorum non magna est copia apud me, hoc fit, quod Romae vivimus: illa domus, illa mihi sedes, illic mea carpitur aetas; huc una ex multis capsula me sequitur. quod cum ita sit, nolim statuas nos mente maligna id facere aut animo non satis ingenuo, quod tibi non utriusque petenti copia posta est: ultro ego deferrem, copia siqua foret.

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has been warming his chilly limbs in the bed that you have abandoned, this, dear Manlius, isn’t disgrace: it’s disaster. Please pardon me then if I don’t send you the gift you requested: grief has made that impossible. I just can’t. And as for the fact that I’ve brought only a few scrolls with me, the reason is that Rome’s the city I live in; that’s where my household is, that’s where all my books are, and why just one box of writings has followed me here. So now, with this explanation, I hope you won’t think I’m stingy or insensitive to what you’ve been going through when I don’t send you any new poems, especially any new love poems. (I would have sent them unasked if I’d had the means.)

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70 Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat. dicit; sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

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70 No one, my woman says, there is no one she’d rather marry than me, not even if Jove himself were to ask her. Says—but ah, what a woman will say to her ardent lover you might as well write on the wind or on rushing water.

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72 Dicebas quondam solum te nosse Catullum, Lesbia, nec prae me velle tenere Iovem. dilexi tum te non tantum ut vulgus amicam, sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos. nunc te cognovi; quare, etsi impensius uror, multo mi tamen es vilior et levior. qui potis est, inquis? quod amantem iniuria talis cogit amare magis, sed bene velle minus.

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72 You used to say that Catullus was the only man you desired, that you would prefer me even to Jove himself. I loved you back then, Lesbia, not as a man loves his mistress but as a father his sons and his sons-in-law. Now I know who you are. And though I’m burning more fiercely, to me you are much cheaper and more ignoble. “How can that be?” you may ask. Because your betrayal forces a lover to lust for you more but to cherish you less.

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75 Huc est mens deducta tua, mea Lesbia, culpa atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo, ut iam nec bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias, nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.

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75 My mind is so debased by your betrayal, my Lesbia, so totally destroyed by its own devotion, that even if you were perfect I couldn’t get it to like you— or cease to love you even if you were a monster.

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76 Si qua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium, nec sanctam violasse fidem, nec foedere in ullo divum ad fallendos numine abusum homines, multa parata manent in longa aetate, Catulle, ex hoc ingrato gaudia amore tibi. nam quaecumque homines bene cuiquam aut dicere possunt aut facere, haec a te dictaque factaque sunt. omnia quae ingratae perierunt credita menti. quare cur tete iam amplius excrucies? quin tu animo offirmas atque istinc te ipse reducis et dis invitis desinis esse miser? difficile est longum subito deponere amorem, difficile est, verum hoc qua lubet efficias; una salus haec est, hoc est tibi pervincendum, hoc facias, sive id non pote sive pote. o di, si vestrum est misereri, aut si quibus umquam extremam iam ipsa in morte tulistis opem, me miserum aspicite et, si vitam puriter egi, eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi, quae mihi subrepens imos ut torpor in artus expulit ex omni pectore laetitias. non iam illud quaero, contra ut me diligat illa, aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica velit: ipse valere opto et taetrum hunc deponere morbum. o di, reddite mi hoc pro pietate mea.

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76 If a man can take any pleasure in the generous things he’s done— remembering what a loyal friend he has been and how he has never broken his word or in any agreement tricked someone by a lying oath to the gods— then there are many joys that still await you, Catullus, through a long life, because of this thankless love. For whatever acts of kindness a person can say or do for someone he loves—these you have said and done; yet they were all thrown away on an ungrateful heart, all wasted; so why torment yourself any further? Come on: get tough, get out; don’t keep making yourself wretched, chasing a girl the gods have denied you. Will it be hard to give up a love of so many years? Of course it will, but somehow you must achieve it. That is the only way; it’s the struggle you have to win; you’ve got to do this, whether or not it can be done. O gods, if there is any mercy in you, if you’ve ever brought your help to a man at the point of death, look down now on my wretchedness, and if my life has been moral, take this disease and rip it out, this affliction, this lethargy that has crept through my whole body, into my innermost being, and drained my heart of its joys. I am no longer asking you to make her return my love or—I know it can’t happen—to make her chaste; I only pray to be whole and rid of this loathsome illness. Do this, O gods, in return for my decent life.

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79 Lesbius est pulcher; quid ni? quem Lesbia malit quam te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua. sed tamen hic pulcher vendat cum gente Catullum sit tria notorum savia reppererit.

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79 Lesbius is pretty, so Lesbia likes him better than you and also than your whole family, Catullus. But let this pretty-boy sell Catullus and family if he can find three acquaintances willing to kiss him hello.

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81 Nemone in tanto potuit populo esse, Iuventi, bellus homo, quem tu diligere inciperes, praeterquam iste tuus moribunda ab sede Pisauri hospes inaurata pallidior statua, qui tibi nunc cordi est, quem tu praeponere nobis audes, et nescis quod facinus facias?

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81 Couldn’t you find, Juventius, among all the people of Rome, a decent fellow a little more comme il faut than this provincial, this stranger from the crumbling town of Pisaurum, whose face is sallower than a gilded statue? And is he your favorite now, the one you prefer to me, clueless about the wrong that you’ve been committing?

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83 Lesbia mi praesente viro mala plurima dicit; haec illi fatuo maxima laetitia est. mule, nihil sentis? si nostri oblita taceret, sana esset; nunc quod gannit et obloquitur, non solum meminit, sed, quae multo acrior est res, irata est. hoc est, uritur et coquitur.

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83 Lesbia likes to insult me when her husband is at her side; he gets the keenest pleasure from her invective. That mule simply can’t fathom that if she shut up about me her heart would be whole, that her snarling words are the proof that she can’t get me out of her mind and (what is more to the point) she is angry—which has to mean she’s burning with passion.

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85 Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

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85 I hate and I love. Perhaps you are wondering how this can be. I don’t know, but I feel it and am in torment.

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86 Quintia formosa est multis. mihi candida, longa, recta est: haec ego sic singula confiteor. totum illud “formosa” nego: nam nulla venustas, nulla in tam magno est corpore mica salis. Lesbia formosa est, quae cum pulcerrima tota est, tum omnibus una omnis surripuit veneres.

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86 They say Quintia’s beautiful. Yes, she is fair skinned, tall, and well built; I concede each one of those points. But I deny her the word beautiful; in her whole body there’s not one grace or hint of sexual joy. Lesbia’s beautiful wholly, not just in her perfect form; she has stolen every charm from all other women.

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87 Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea es. nulla fides ullo fuit umquam foedere tanta, quanta in amore tuo ex parte reperta mea est.

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87 No woman can ever say that she has been loved as deeply as you, my Lesbia, used to be loved by me. No man has ever respected a vow with greater devotion than I have always shown in my love for you.

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91 Non ideo, Gelli, sperabam te mihi fidum in misero hoc nostro, hoc perdito amore fore, quod te cognossem bene constantemve putarem aut posse a turpi mentem inhibere probro; sed neque quod matrem nec germanam esse videbam hanc tibi, cuius me magnus edebat amor. et quamvis tecum multo coniungerer usu, non satis id causae credideram esse tibi. tu satis id duxti: tantum tibi gaudium in omni culpa est, in quacumque est aliquid sceleris.

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91 I hoped you’d turn out to be a steadfast friend to me, Gellius, in this miserable, disastrous love affair— not through knowing you well, or thinking you could be trusted or able to keep your mind from the filthiest vileness, but because the woman I loved, with a passion that threatened to eat me alive, was neither your mother nor your dear sister. And though we had known each other for a considerable time, I didn’t think this was reason enough to betray me. But you did think it enough: such is your pleasure in any offense that might have a whiff of wickedness in it.

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92 Lesbia mi dicit semper male nec tacet umquam de me: Lesbia me dispeream nisi amat. quo signo? quia sunt totidem mea: deprecor illam assidue, verum dispeream nisi amo.

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92 Lesbia’s always insulting me; she never shuts up about it; but this I swear: may I die if she doesn’t love me. How do I know? I’m the same: I too keep putting her down, but I swear it: may I die if I do not love her.

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95 Zmyrna mei Cinnae nonam post denique messem quam coepta est nonamque edita post hiemem, milia cum interea quingenta Hortensius uno . Zmyrna cavas Satrachi penitus mittetur ad undas, Zmyrnam cana diu saecula pervoluent. at Volusi annales Paduam morientur ad ipsam et laxas scombris saepe dabunt tunicas.

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95 The short epic by my dear Cinna, nine harvest times and nine winters after it was begun, is finally published. (Hortensius, on the other hand, has been churning out half a million of his contemptible verses every year.) The “Smyrna” will reach as far as the deep-channeled waves of Satrachus, and generations will grow white haired as they read it, while Volusius’ Annals will die beside the Padua River and will often furnish raw fish loose coats for the oven.

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96 Si quicquam mutis gratum acceptumve sepulcris accidere a nostro, Calve, dolore potest, quo desiderio veteres renovamus amores atque olim missas flemus amicitias, certe non tanto mors immatura dolori est Quintiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo.

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96 If the silent dead can receive any degree of comfort or happiness from the grief that we go through, Calvus— the regret we experience when we remember our ancient loves and weep for any friendship that we abandoned— you can be sure that Quintilia’s grief for her early death is not so great as the joy she feels in your love.

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99 Surripui tibi, dum ludis, mellite Iuventi, saviolum dulci dulcius ambrosia. verum id non impune tuli: namque amplius horam suffi xum in summa me memini esse cruce, dum tibi me purgo nec possum fletibus ullis tantillum vestrae demere saevitiae. nam simul id factum est, multis diluta labella guttis abstersti mollibus articulis, ne quicquam nostro contractum ex ore maneret, tamquam commictae spurca saliva lupae. praeterea infesto miserum me tradere amori non cessasti omnique excruciare modo, ut mi ex ambrosia mutatum iam foret illud saviolum tristi tristius elleboro. quam quoniam poenam misero proponis amori, numquam iam posthac basia surripiam.

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99 I stole a kiss from your lips, Juventius, while you were teasing, a kiss that tasted as sweet as the sweetest ambrosia. I didn’t get away with it; for more than an hour, I remember, I hung nailed up on a cross, in the depths of torment, weeping, begging you please to forgive me; but all my tears didn’t dissolve one particle of your outrage. As soon as you could, you splashed your lips with a palmful of water and fiercely wiped them off with your lovely fingers, so that you wouldn’t feel polluted by my saliva, as if I were some cheap whore arrived from a blowjob. Since then you haven’t stopped torturing me, at every turn in our path, in every possible way, so that for me, the kiss has been changed from its pure ambrosia to a bitterness more bitter than hellebore. Well, since you have imposed this forfeit on a poor lover, I promise that it’s the last kiss I’ll ever steal.

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101 Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, ut te postremo donarem munere mortis et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem, quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi. nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

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101 Through many countries and over many seas I have traveled and arrive, my brother, for these sad funeral rites, to offer you now the final dues that are owed the dead and to wait in vain for your silent ashes to answer, since fortune, alas, has robbed me of your belovèd presence, dearest of brothers, unfairly torn from my life. There is nothing more I can do but perform these burial rites, the ancient tradition handed down by our fathers. Accept the gifts that I offer, wet with fraternal tears, and now, my brother—now for all time—farewell.

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104 Credis me potuisse meae maledicere vitae, ambobus mihi quae carior est oculis? non potui, nec, si possem, tam perdite amarem; sed tu cum Tappone omnia monstra facis.

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104 Do you think that I could ever insult the love of my life, a woman dearer to me than my own two eyes? I couldn’t, and wouldn’t love her so desperately if I could. But you and Tappo blow everything out of proportion.

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107 Si quicquam cupido optantique optigit umquam insperanti, hoc est gratum animo proprie. quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque, carius auro quod te restituis, Lesbia, mi cupido. restituis cupido atque insperanti, ipsa refers te nobis. o lucem candidiore nota! quis me uno vivit felicior, aut magis hac quid optandum vita dicere quis poterit?

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107 If, beyond expectation, beyond hope, we get what we want, that is a joy which fi lls the enchanted heart. Thus you gave me, my Lesbia, something more precious than gold when you returned to me, just as I prayed you would. You truly gave yourself back—what I’d longed but never hoped for— on a day more blessed than any that went before it. Is there a man on earth more fortunate now than I am? Could anyone possibly have a more perfect life?

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109 Iucundum, mea vita, mihi proponis: amorem hunc nostrum inter nos perpetuum usque fore. di magni, facite ut vere promittere possit, atque id sincere dicat et ex animo, ut liceat nobis tota perducere vita aeternum hoc sanctae foedus amicitiae.

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109 You assure me, my dearest heart, that this love existing between us will be happy and that it’s going to last forever. Let her, you mighty gods, be able to keep this promise, let her be making it honestly, from the heart, and let it be our glad fate to enjoy for the rest of our lives the unbreakable bond of this our sacred friendship.

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NOTES All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. An asterisk after the number of a poem means that it isn’t included in this book. I have used the Latin text of D. F. S. Thomson’s 1998 edition, except for poems 11, l. 11, 51, ll. 13– 16, 65, l. 9, and 95, ll. 4, 9–10. In the Latin texts, angle brackets () enclose words that the editor has added, and an obelus (†) means that the word is plainly corrupt but the editor can’t find a reasonable emendation.

Introduction the most elegant of poets: Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 7.20. sweet Catullus . . . tenderest of Roman poets: “ ‘Frater Ave Atque Vale,’ ” in Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Selected Poems (London: Penguin, 2007), 293. his finger moved from word to word: Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan, 1897), 248. miserable, disastrous love affair: Poem 91. make poetry out of anything: D. S. Carne-Ross, “Getting Close to Catullus,” New York Review of Books, March 23, 1967. “Williams’s red wheelbarrow” is a reference to “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams. the last years of the Roman Republic: See the first chapters of Wiseman, Catullus and His World, and Gaisser, Catullus, and chapters 5 and 6 of Skinner, Companion to Catullus. I can do anything I want: Suetonius, Gaius Caligula 29. to host Julius Caesar: “As Caesar himself didn’t hesitate to say, Catullus had set a permanent mark of shame on him by his verses about Mamurra [poems  29 and 57]; yet when he apologized, Caesar invited him to dinner that same day and continued to enjoy the hospitality of Catullus’s father, as he was in the habit of doing” (Suetonius, Julius Caesar 73). wealthy enough to own: For all we know, the two villas may have been owned by Catullus himself. (In poem 31, he calls himself the master, or owner, of the villa at Sirmio.) at about the age of fifteen: See poem 68a.

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Calvus . . . Cinna . . . Cato: Catullus addresses or mentions Calvus in poems 14, 50, 53, and 96, and Cinna in 10 and 95. See notes to poem 14 for Calvus and to poem 10 for Cinna. Cato, also from Cisalpine Gaul, was a poet and grammarian. New Poets: The “New Poets” or “Neoterics” (from the Greek word for “newer” or “more recent”). On this loose movement, see W. R. Johnson, “Neoteric Poets,” in Skinner, Companion to Catullus. Memmius was Lucretius’s patron: Memmius, who died around the year 49, was a son-in-law of the dictator Sulla; he was a well-known orator and a poet, to whom Lucretius dedicated On the Nature of Things, calling him “a man adorned with every excellence, / at all times and in every way” (On the Nature of Things 1.26–27). fucked [him] over: See poems 10 and 28. the reputation of being beautiful: “The women of Lesbos were proverbially beautiful. . . . The name ‘Lesbia’ was a graceful compliment, and he must have trusted her taste to accept it as such” (Wiseman, Catullus and His World, 135–36). This is what the writings: Propertius, Elegies 2.34.87–88. Apuleius published her real name: “You have also noticed that I am criticized because I name the boys Charinus and Critias, rather than give them other names; but the same accusation could be made against the works of Gaius Catullus, because he used the name Lesbia instead of Clodia” (Apuleius, Apology 10). most ancient families in Rome: The first of the Claudii to obtain the consulship was Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis, in 495 BCE; from then on its members often held the highest offices of government under both the republic and the empire. “They achieved twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships, six triumphs, and two ovations” (Suetonius, Tiberius 1d). Clodia and her brother used the plebeian spelling “Clodius” instead of the patrician spelling “Claudius.” the Palatine Medea, etc.: Cicero, For Caelius 18, 49, 35. I’m not saying anything now: Cicero, For Caelius 38. Husband—brother, I meant to say: Cicero, For Caelius 32. Some scholars think that a rumor that the youngest sister, Clodia the wife of Lucullus, was

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guilty of incest with her brother spilled over onto Clodia the wife of Metellus. “Lucullus produced slave girls who testified that Clodius had sex with his youngest sister when she was living with Lucullus as his wife” (Plutarch, Life of Cicero 29). she was very beautiful: See poems 43 and 86. The Ox-Eyed One: Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.12.2. pleasures, and loves, and adulteries: Cicero, For Caelius 35. the woman who is dearer . . . my dazzling goddess: Poem 68b*. no woman would ever be loved as deeply: Poems 8 and 87. a love that would “last forever . . . friendship”: Poem 109. And though she isn’t content: Poem 68b*. a number of erotic poems: Poems 32, 41*, and 110*. poems to or about boys: Poems 15, 24, 40, 48, 81, and 99. Then there are the poems with jokes or threats of homosexual rape: 16*, 37, and 56*. There was . . . “a distinction”: Wiseman, Catullus and His World, 10–11. For a fuller treatment, see Williams, Roman Homosexuality. his bravest and most political poem: Poem 29. then it vanished: Except for poem 62*, which was included in a ninthcentury anthology. 3 of them aren’t by Catullus: Poems 18* to 20*. “old, learned, respectable bald heads”: W. B. Yeats, “The Scholars,” in The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, vol. 1: The Poems, ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York: Macmillan, 1990), 140. an edition of the poems by his bedside: Robert Lowell, Collected Prose (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987), 11. one critic: Carne-Ross, “Getting Close to Catullus.” He was referring to poem 66*, but he could have been speaking about any of the long poems.

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1 This poem is written in Phalaecian hendecasyllabics, which consist of lines of eleven syllables in five feet, as follows, where “—” signifies a long (in English = an accented) syllable, “ ” a short (in English = an unaccented) syllable, and “x” is either long or short (in English = accented or unaccented):

˘

x x—

˘˘—˘—˘—x

The first foot may be a spondee (——), a trochee (— ), or an iamb ( —), followed by a dactyl (— ), two trochees, and a spondee or trochee. All poems from 1 through 58 are written in Phalaecian hendecasyllabics unless otherwise indicated.

˘

˘˘

˘

book of verse: We don’t know what book Catullus is referring to here. He may well have presented to Nepos a shorter collection than the one that has come down to us—possibly poems 1–60, or a selection from them. Cornelius: Cornelius Nepos (c. 99–24 BCE), a Roman biographer and friend of Cicero and Atticus; like Catullus, he came from the Transpadane region of northern Italy, north of the river Po. Just one section of his voluminous On Famous Men—parallel lives of distinguished Romans and foreigners—has survived, along with his biographies of Cato and Atticus. He was “a compatriot about ten years older than the poet and a keen admirer of him. . . . Nepos was not a patron of Catullus in the sense that Maecenas was of Horace, but he had made a complimentary reference to him in his history” (Goold, Catullus, 236). patron goddess: The poet’s muse.

2 sparrow: Sparrows were sacred to Venus. my girl: Lesbia.

5 cast a spell: “Astrology and magic were real, and intellectually respectable, in the Rome of the late Republic. A man who hoped against hope for something he had set his heart on might well be afraid of bewitchment by the ‘evil eye’ ” (Wiseman, Catullus and His World, 140). In the world of magic, any information about you could be used to curse you with the evil eye. See also the last line of poem 7.

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6 Flavius: Unidentified.

7 Cyrenē: An ancient Greek and later Roman city near present-day Shahhat, Libya. rich in spices: Literally, “rich in silphium.” In the ancient world, silphium was used as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, medicine, and contraceptive. oracle of Ammon: The temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Egyptian oasis of Siwa. Battus: The first king of Cyrenē.

8 This poem is written in choliambics, a meter that is impossibly heavy in English, so I have translated it, as well as poems 22, 31, 37, 39, 44, and 60, into iambic pentameter.

9 Veranius: Unidentified. He is mentioned in poem 12* as the companion of Fabullus in Spain, as well as in poems 28 and 47*.

10 Varus: “Whether he is Alfenus Varus, the eminent jurist . . . , or Quintilius Varus, the friend of Virgil and of Horace . . . , cannot be determined on the evidence” (Thomson, Catullus, 232). Bithynia: A Roman province in the north-central region of present-day Turkey. Serapis: The a is long. An Egyptian god then popular in Rome. The Temple of Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius was dedicated to the two Egyptian gods, and people went there to be cured of diseases. Cinna: C. Helvius Cinna, one of the New Poets, who was killed in the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s assassination. “The mob went out with the intention of killing Cornelius Cinna, who had given a bitter speech against Caesar the day before; but when they found Helvius Cinna, they murdered him by mistake and paraded through the streets with his head stuck on the point of a spear” (Suetonius, Julius Caesar 85). Shakespeare includes the incident in act

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3, scene 3 of Julius Caesar, in which Cinna tries to explain who he is (“I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet!”) before he is torn apart by the mob. See also poem 95.

11 This poem is written in Sapphic stanzas: — —x— — —x — —x— — —x — —x— — —x — —x

˘ ˘˘ ˘ ˘ ˘˘ ˘ ˘ ˘˘ ˘ ˘˘

Furius: Unidentified. He is also mentioned in the mostly abusive 16*, 23*, and 26*. Aurelius: Unidentified. Paired with Furius here and in 16*, also mentioned in poems 15 and 21*. cross the Channel: Caesar crossed the Rhine in the summer of 55 and reached Britain in the fall. a flower / fallen at the edge of a field: Ancient readers would have seen an allusion here to a famous scene in the Iliad, in which the Achaean warrior Teucer, aiming an arrow at Hector, kills a young Trojan prince: . . . he missed him and hit Gorgýthion in the chest, Priam’s son by a wife who came from Æsýmē, Cástianíra, as beautiful as a goddess; and his head drooped, like a poppy in a spring garden weighed down with seeds and a heavy rain: so his head leaned to one side beneath the weight of his helmet. (The Iliad, 8.281–86, trans. Stephen Mitchell [New York: Free Press, 2011], 130) The fallen flower also resonates with an image in poem 62*: “But when she pollutes her body and loses chastity’s flower.”

13 Fabullus: The accent is on the second syllable. Unidentified, but in poem 12* he is named with Veranius as a companion from Spain. He also appears in poems 28 and 47*.

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14 Calvus: The lawyer and poet Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus (82–47? BCE), one of Catullus’s closest friends, who also appears in poems 50, 53, and 96. He wrote poems mocking Julius Caesar’s rumored affair with King Nicomedes of Bithynia and suggesting that Pompey was a passive homosexual too. He was “especially famous for his impassioned speeches against Vatinius, a political tool of Caesar’s” (Goold, Catullus, 239). “In the time of Tacitus, [Calvus’s speeches] were still read by every student of oratory” (Fordyce, Catullus, 223). Vatinian: Calvus prosecuted the much-hated Vatinius for bribery in 54. Vatinius also appears in poem 52*. Sulla: This may be a nickname for Cornelius Epicadus, a grammarian who was a freedman of the dictator Sulla. Saturnalia: The festival of Saturn, the god of abundance. It began on December 17 and was celebrated for a week with feasting, gift giving, role reversal between slaves and masters, and often licentious revelry. Aquinus, Caesius: Both are unidentified. Suf- / fenus: Unidentified. He makes a cameo appearance in poem 22.

15 boyfriend: Probably the boy named Juventius, who also appears in poems 21*, 24, 40, 48, 81, and 99. “Sex with prepubescent boys, even of the noble class (as Juventius seems to have been), was permitted—as long as it ended when the boy became a man” (Hejduk, Clodia, 131). Aurelius: Unidentified. See note to poem 11. mullets: “The foremost dorsal fin of the mullet is furnished with four rigid spines, which lie flat when the fish is moved in the direction of the head through an opening a little larger than itself, but which erect themselves when it is attempted to withdraw it. It was thus used by the Romans to lacerate the tenderest parts of the human body as a punishment for the crime of adultery” (Ellis, Commentary on Catullus, 58).

22 This poem is written in choliambics in Latin, iambic pentameter in my English.

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Suffenus: Unidentified. Varus: “The Varus who is addressed here is perhaps more likely to be Quintilius Varus, the literary man and friend of Virgil and Horace, than the jurist Alfenus Varus” (Thomson, Catullus, 259). rolls: The wooden or ivory stick or cylinder around which the papyrus book was wrapped. knobs: The bosses, often decorated, attached to the ends of the scroll cylinder and projecting from the roll. wrappers: The parchment wrapper protected the papyrus roll inside. pages ruled with lead: A “small circular lead plate was used, with a ruler, for marking out lines to guide the writer’s hand” (Fordyce, Catullus, 148–49). knapsack: The image—a double knapsack worn over the shoulder—comes from Aesop’s fables. “Jupiter has provided us with two knapsacks: one, fi lled with our own faults, he placed behind our backs; the other, heavy with other people’s faults, is in front. Thus, we aren’t able to see our own faults, but as soon as other people make a mistake, we’re ready to condemn them” (Phaedrus, Aesop’s Fables 4.10).

24 Juventius clan: “The Juventii were an old and distinguished Roman family, originally from Tusculum . . . ; the name is also found at Verona” (Fordyce, Catullus, 155). See note to poem 15 about Catullus’s “boyfriend.” that fellow: Furius, who is otherwise unidentified (see note to poem 11). Poem 23* begins this way: “Ah you, Furius, neither slaves nor money . . .”

27 Falernian: A highly esteemed ancient Italian wine. Postumia: “The wife, according to some, of Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the famous lawyer and correspondent of Cicero” (Goold, Catullus, 241). mistress of our banquet: “A ruler of the feast was chosen (usually by lot), and his decrees were absolute concerning the proportion of water to wine in the mixing, and the proposal and drinking of toasts” (Merrill, Catullus, 50). Romans usually diluted wine with at least an equal amount of water.

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Bacchus: Also known as Dionysus in Greek, he was the god of winemaking, fertility, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theater.

28 Veranius, Fabullus: See note to poem 9. Piso: L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (101–c. 43 BCE), the father of Julius Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, and from 57 to 55 governor of Macedonia, where Veranius and Fabullus served under him. Piso “remained there somewhat more than two years, plundering the provincials and abusing to the full extent the privilege of a Roman governor to enrich himself” (Ellis, Commentary on Catullus, 91). my year’s service: Catullus served in Bithynia; see the Introduction. Memmius: He is the commander referred to in poem 10. stuck yourself in my mouth: Catullus isn’t being literal here; the meaning is “Memmius fucked me over in the most demeaning ways.” those assholes: Namely, Piso and Memmius. Romulus and Remus: The legendary twin founders of Rome.

29 This poem is written in iambic trimeter in Latin, iambic pentameter in my English. Mamurra: Principal engineer and supply officer in Julius Caesar’s army in Gaul; he also served under Pompey in the Mithridatic campaign and under Caesar in Spain. He became a very rich man, though Catullus calls him “the bankrupt of Formiae” (poem 41*) because he squandered vast sums of the money he looted abroad. Catullus also attacks him in poems 43 and 57*, 94*, 105*, 114*, and 115*, the last four under the nickname “Mentula” (Prick). Provence: In Latin, Gallia Comata, a Roman province larger than Provence, “bordered by the Pyrenees Mountains on the west, the Cévennes to the north, the Alps on the east, and the Gulf of Lion on the south” (Wikipedia). you faggot: A reference to Caesar’s rumored hookup, as the passive partner, with King Nicomedes of Bithynia. In English, the slur “faggot,” meaning “an effeminate man,” is a close equivalent to the Latin cinaedus, “a man who

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fails to live up to traditional standards of masculine comportment, and one way in which he may do so is by seeking to be penetrated; but that is merely a symptom of the deeper disorder, his gender deviance” (Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 174). Caesar: “Romulus” in the Latin text. “Caesar might be called Romulus partly as a would-be king, partly in irony, to hint that he was a very poor imitation of the great founder of Rome” (Ellis, Commentary on Catullus, 98). the farthest island of the west: Britain. twenty / or thirty millions: Of sesterces. The sesterce was a small silver coin for which it is impossible to assign a current value. (Some apparently informed estimates vary from two to four dollars.) loot: “The loot brought back by Pompey and his men after the conquest of Mithridates in 63 B.C.” (Quinn, Catullus, 179). Pontus: A region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located on the northeast coast of present-day Turkey; it was conquered by Pompey in 64 BCE. Spain: “The reference is to Caesar’s campaign as proprietor of Hispania ulterior in 61” (Quinn, Catullus, 179). Tagus: “The gold deposits in the Tagus . . . were a spectacular side-line in the mineral wealth of the Iberian peninsula; the mines there were the main source of Rome’s gold supply for centuries” (Quinn, Catullus, 163). in-laws: “In 59 BC Caesar caused his daughter Julia, who was already engaged, to break off her engagement and marry Pompey” (Thomson, Catullus,  281); Julia’s death in the fall of 54 weakened the alliance between the two men. brought desolation: This refers to “the breakdown of the Republican system under the recently renewed first triumvirate. The elections of praetors and other magistrates for 55 BC had been so badly impeded by intrigue and faction that they were not held until the year had begun, and then the election of Vatinius and the exclusion of Cato engendered a public scandal” (Thomson, Catullus, 163).

31 This poem is written in choliambics in Latin, iambic pentameters in my English.

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Sirmio: Present-day Sirmione, a promontory at the southern end of Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy, which is situated about halfway between Brescia and Verona. Bithynia: In present-day Turkey, where Catullus served in the army; see the Introduction.

32 Thomson identifies this poem as “a note to a meretrix [courtesan], requesting an assignation” (Catullus, 287).

35 Caecilius: “Otherwise unknown, but possibly an ancestor or relation of the Younger Pliny, who bore the name Caecilius and hailed from Novum Comum” (Thomson, Catullus, 293). Novum Comum: The present-day town of Como, situated on the southwest shore of Lake Como about thirty miles north of Milan. It was settled with five thousand veterans by Julius Caesar’s order in 59 BCE and renamed Novum Comum. the distance: Como is about 130 miles from Verona. The Great Mother: Cybele, an Anatolian goddess who became popular in Rome, where she was called Magna Mater.

36 Volusius: Unidentified. He also appears in poem 95. the gimpy god of fire: Vulcan, the lame god of blacksmiths, metalworkers, carpenters, artisans, and fire. born of the sea foam: According to Hesiod’s Theogony, the Titan Cronos castrated his father, Uranos, and threw his genitals into the sea, from which Venus was born. Ancona: One of the main ports on the Adriatic Sea, located 170 miles northeast of Rome. Idalium: A town in Cyprus that contained a famous shrine of Venus. Cnidus: City in Caria (Turkey), famous for its statue of Aphrodite by the fourth-century BCE Athenian sculptor Praxiteles.

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Palaiaphos: A city in southwest Cyprus, known primarily for the Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia. (The Latin text has “Ámathus,” another Cypriot town, unusable in English because of the meter.) Urios: Possibly Uria, a city in Calabria. Golgi: A town in Cyprus that contained a famous ancient shrine of Venus. Dyrrachium: A seaport in Illyria (Albania).

37 This poem is written in choliambics in Latin, iambic pentameters in my English. nine posts down: At the ninth pillar, counting from the temple. Twins: Castor and Pollux. Their temple was on the south side of the Forum, close to the north face of the Palatine Hill. Egnatius: Catullus attacks him because he is one of Clodia’s lovers. He, his teeth, and his urine also appear in poem 39. “Possibly C[atullus]’s Egnatius could be one who, according to Plutarch . . . escaped from the massacre at Carrhae. Appian . . . has two Egnatii, father and son, who were put to death in the proscription of 43 BC. It is quite likely that the son was identical with the survivor of Carrhae. . . . Macrobius . . . mentions—and quotes—an Egnatius who wrote a poem De rerum natura [On the nature of things]. Since he is named in company with Lucretius and Cornificius . . . , he may well have been roughly contemporaneous with C. The Egnatius mentioned here should probably be identified with this philosopher-poet, in part because of his long hair and beard . . . since these attributes were at this period peculiar to philosophers” (Thomson, Catullus, 305). The “massacre at Carrhae” refers to the defeat of Marcus Licinius Crassus (a general and member of the First Triumvirate, along with Julius Caesar and Pompey) in 53 BCE, ending his campaign against the Parthian Empire in present-day Harran, Turkey. Spain: The Latin word is Celtiberia. “The Celtiberi . . . were the hardy people of north central Spain, a mixed race due to invasion of Celtic territory by Iberians; the conquest of them by Rome had been a long and difficult operation” (Fordyce, Catullus, 188). brushed white with Spanish piss: This custom is confirmed by the geographer and historian Strabo (64 or 63 BCE—c. 24 CE): “They don’t care about

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ease or luxury, unless you think it can make you happy to wash yourself and your wife in stale urine kept in tanks, and to rinse your teeth with it, which both the Cantabrians and their neighbors are said to do” (Geography 3.4.16).

39 This poem is written in choliambics in Latin, iambic pentameters in my English. Egnatius: See notes to poem 37. Sabine, Tiburtine: See notes to poem 44. Umbrian: Umbria is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany to the west and the north, Marche to the east, and Lazio to the south. Etruscan: Etruria was a region that covered parts of what are now Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria. “Instead of the slender and symmetrical proportions of the Greeks and Italians, the sculptures of the Etruscans exhibit only short sturdy figures with large heads and thick arms” (Ellis, Commentary on Catullus, 141). Lanuvian: Lanuvium (present-day Lanuvio) is a city twenty miles southeast of Rome. Transpadane: An inhabitant of Cisalpine Gaul, where Verona was located; it is bordered in the north and west by the Alps, in the south as far as Placentia by the river Po, the Apennines, and the Rubicon, and in the east by the Adriatic Sea. brush their teeth . . .with last night’s piss: See notes to poem 37.

40 Given the similarities with others of Catullus’s poems about him, “it is reasonable to conclude that poem 40 should be numbered among the group of poems concerned with Juventius” (Thomson, Catullus, 308). On Juventius, see notes to poem 15. Raudus: Unidentified. sloppily called upon: This points to “the older belief that a slight mistake in the observance of the ceremonials of invocation might bring down the wrath of the deity instead of his goodwill” (Merrill, Catullus, 71).

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43 Ameana: Mistress of Mamurra (see notes to poem 29). She isn’t named in this poem, but the name Ameana appears in poem 41*, and in both poems she is called “mistress of the bankrupt of Formiae,” i.e., Mamurra. yokels: Literally, “in the province,” viz., Gallia Cisalpina, where Verona is situated.

44 This poem is written in choliambics in Latin, iambic pentameters in my English. Sabine: Catullus’s villa “was not strictly in fashionable Tibur [present-day Tivoli] but rather just outside it, in the unpretentious Sabine farming country on the side away from Rome. If you wanted to stretch a point—and flatter the owner—you could call it ‘Tiburtine’ ” (Thomson, Catullus, 314). Sestius: A politician and ally of Cicero, who later defended him in For Sestius on charges of public violence in 56 BCE. frigid: A technical term of literary criticism “for the bad taste which shows itself in bombast, affectation, or preciosity” (Fordyce, Catullus, 197). The joke is that the speech was so “frigid” that it gave Catullus a cold. Antius: Unidentified.

46 Nicea: The administrative capital of Bithynia, in present-day Turkey. Asia: A province in western Turkey, the richest of the Roman provinces. Its most famous city was Pergamum; other principal cities were Sardis, Ephesus, and Smyrna. companions: The friends who served with Catullus on Memmius’s staff, who were all eager to go home.

48 Juventius: See notes to poem 15.

50 Calvus: See notes to poem 14. “The two poets have, perhaps for the first time, enjoyed a day of leisure together . . . illinc abii [I left (that place)] (l. 7)

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shows that the meeting was not at C[atullus]’s house, while the fact that Calvus had to use C.’s tabellae [tablets] (l. 2) suggests that it was not at Calvus’ house either. Obviously they met (at a tavern, perhaps?) during the day and parted before the hour of the cena [dinner]” (Thomson, Catullus, 325). tablets: Small hinged wooden tablets, “waxed on one side (and folded together with the waxed surfaces, protected by a raised edge, turned inwards). They were used for short notes or first drafts that could easily be erased with a stilus” (Thomson, Catullus, 325). Nemesis: The goddess of justice, who punished vanity and arrogance.

51 This poem, written in Sapphic stanzas, is an adaptation of Sappho’s fragment 31, her most famous poem. I have omitted the feeble fourth stanza of Catullus’s adaptation, which doesn’t appear in the Sappho fragment that has come down to us and which the sixteenth-century scholar Achilles Statius and many later editors have considered an isolated fragment: Idleness, Catullus, is your big problem; it just makes you restless and hard to manage. Idleness has formerly ruined kings and prosperous cities.

53 Calvus . . . accusations: The prosecution was for bribery, and the speech later became a textbook example for aspiring lawyers. Vatinius: See notes to poem 14.

55 the park: The Lesser Campus. Its location is unknown. Circus: The Circus Maximus, near the Forum. temple: The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the oldest large temple in Rome. Pompey’s new colonnade: “The porticus Pompei, an open columned court, planted with trees and hung with tapestries on the walls . . . , which was attached to the theatre built in the Campus Martius by [Pompey the Great] and dedicated in 55 B.C.” (Fordyce, Catullus, 227). It seems to have been a popular spot for picking up prostitutes.

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Camerius: Unidentified. (The name is trisyllabic; the “i” is a consonant rather than a vowel.) He also appears in poem 58b*.

58 “Clearly C[atullus] is at Verona when he hears the news of Lesbia’s goings-on in Rome (the last line is designed to make this point); Caelius, a Veronese friend (see 100:1–2), is with C. at Verona, in all probability” (Thomson, Catullus, 343). In spite of poem 100*, about the Veronese Caelius, some scholars think that this Caelius is the M. Caelius Rufus who was Lesbia’s lover, though he was from a town south of Rome.

60 This poem is written in choliambics in Latin, iambic pentameters in my English. The topos here goes back to the Iliad, when Patroclus says to Achilles, Your father cannot have been Lord Peleus, nor can Thetis have been your mother. The rough sea bore you, the harsh cliffs fathered you, since your heart has no pity. (The Iliad, 16.30–32, trans. Stephen Mitchell, 250) Scylla: Lucretius, Catullus, Propertius, Virgil, and Ovid represent Scylla as “a maiden down to the waist, and a combination of wolf-dog and dolphin, below. . . . Catullus is quite definite in his conception; Scylla’s body terminates in barking dogs: she barks with the extremities of the groin” (Ellis, Commentary on Catullus, 208).

65 This poem is written in elegiac couplets, which consist of a dactylic hexameter followed by a pentameter. (From here to the end of the book, all poems are written in elegiac couplets.) This poem accompanied poem 66*, Catullus’s translation of Callimachus’s “The Lock of Berenice,” in which Queen Berenice dedicates a lock of hair to Venus to ensure her husband’s safety, and it is later transformed into a constellation. Hortalus: Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, a prominent politician and orator, consul in 69 BCE, and rival of Cicero. He is the main speaker in Cicero’s lost book Hortensius, an invitation to the philosophical life that later inspired Augustine of Hippo. my dear brother: See poems 68a and 101. There is also a reference to him in poem 68b*:

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now buried so far away, not near familiar graves or laid to rest near the ashes of your own kinsmen, but under the dirt of hateful Troy, of disastrous Troy, alone, in a foreign land at the edge of the world. into the river Lethe: The moment Catullus imagines seems to be “when his brother stepped into the waters of forgetfulness, to board Charon’s boat” (Quinn, Catullus, 353). Charon was the ferryman in the underworld. Rhoeteum: A promontory on the Hellespont, near Troy. (The accent is on the second syllable.) (Is it true that I’ll never speak to you, never hear you again): I have inserted into Thomson’s text a Humanistic supplement, which “appears in some fi fteenth-century MSS. . . . Some editors have accepted it as genuine, fi lling the gap with tua (or te) facta (or fata, or verba)” (Thomson, Catullus, 445). the nightingale sings: Procne was the wife of the Daulian king Tereus. In the Roman version of the myth, when Tereus raped her sister, Philomela, and tore out her tongue to prevent her from revealing his crime, Philomela wove a tapestry that made clear what had happened. The sisters killed Procne’s son Itys, boiled him, and served him to Tereus. After he had finished eating, the sisters brought him the boy’s severed head. Tereus grabbed an ax and chased them. When he had almost caught up, they prayed to be turned into birds. The gods transformed Procne into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, and Tereus into a hoopoe. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.442 ff. apple: Traditionally, a lover’s gift. bosom: “The girdle around the body just below the breasts made the upper part of the robe a convenient, if not safe, receptacle for small objects” (Merrill, Catullus, 165).

68a Most scholars separate poem 68 into two parts: 68a, a personal letter to a friend (lines 1–40), and 68b*, an elegiac poem (lines 41–148). Manlius: This Manlius is “most likely to have been L. Manlius Torquatus, praetor in 49 BC, who may or may not be the same as the Manlius of poem 61, in which Manlius appears as the bridegroom” (Thomson, Catullus, 348). toga of manhood: The plain, white, unbordered toga virilis, marking a boy’s entry into manhood. It replaced the toga praetexta of childhood—a white toga

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with a broad purple stripe on its border, worn over a tunic with two broad vertical purple stripes—when a boy reached the age of fi fteen or sixteen. box: A cylindrical box in which scrolls stood on end.

70 no one . . . she’d rather marry: Clodia’s husband had died in March 59 BCE. (Of course, she could easily have said this even when he was alive.)

72 his sons and his sons-in-law: “For the modern reader the phrase ‘sons and sons-in-law’ strikes a jarring note (we expect ‘sons and daughters’). But the sons-in-law are there for a purpose: to make it clear that the father in the simile is caring not merely for his children but for the future of his family line, represented by the power of his sons and sons-in-law to beget his descendants. . . . The trio of fathers, sons, and sons-in-law is all male. By evoking it Catullus powerfully demonstrates his past feelings for Lesbia: he was bringing her into what for a male Roman was the very core of his family, the tightly bound group of kinsmen that represented its essence and continuity” (Gaisser, Catullus, 34).

76 so many years: The affair with Lesbia had apparently lasted for four or five years.

79 Lesbius: This name stands for Clodia’s brother Publius Clodius Pulcher. “The play is on pulcher [pretty] as a true descriptive adjective, and as also the cognomen of Lesbia’s brother; the intimation being that the very fact that he is her brother gives him added attraction in her eyes as a paramour” (Merrill, Catullus, 201). sell: As slaves. willing to kiss him hello: The usual greeting for men was a kiss on the lips. The implication here is that people who knew Lesbius would be reluctant to kiss him because his lips were polluted from his being the penetrated partner in fellatio.

81 Juventius: See note to poem 15. Pisaurum: Present-day Pesaro. “An old Roman colony in Umbria, on the Adriatic; that it was now in decline is confirmed by the fact that a new body of settlers was sent to it in 43 B.C.” (Fordyce, Catullus, 371).

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83 that mule: “The mule is cited, not because it is sterile or because it is proverbial for stupidity or obstinacy . . . but because of its patience and complaisance . . . (it will bear any burden and accept almost any treatment, lacking the proper pride of the horse, for example), making it a suitable figure for the indifference of the husband” (Thomson, Catullus, 510).

86 Quintia: Unidentified.

91 Gellius: “It seems that G[ellius] was himself an epigrammatist, and at least to that extent C[atullus]’s literary rival; he was also his rival in the matter of a magnus amor [great love], probably Lesbia. . . . Probably he was L. Gellius Publicola, son of the consul of 72 BC, and consul himself in 36” (Thomson, Catullus, 497). Gellius also appears in poems 74*, 80*, 88*, 89*, 90*, and 116*. In poems 88* to 90* Catullus accuses Gellius of incest with his mother and sister.

95 short epic: A brief narrative poem (the modern technical term is epyllion), usually dealing with mythological themes. (Catullus’s epyllion, poem 64*, is not included in this book.) The subject of the poem “Smyrna” was “the incestuous passion of Smyrna for her father, Cinyras, king of Cyprus, her metamorphosis into a tree, and the birth from her trunk of Adonis. Two fragments survive, one two lines in length, the other a single line” (Quinn, Catullus, 431). Ovid tells the same story in Metamorphoses 10.298 ff., calling Smyrna “Myrrha.” Cinna: See notes to poem 10. Hortensius: Either the Quintus Hortensius Hortalus who appears in poem 65 or his son. Satrachus: “Satrachus was a river in Cyprus which [the Greek epic poet] Nonnus . . . connects with the legend of Adonis, Smyrna’s son. Cinna’s poem will be known even in that distant part of the world where its scene is laid” (Fordyce, Catullus, 384). Volusius: Unidentified. He also appears in poem 36. Padua: “The meaning must be that Volusius’s verses will not get beyond the place of their (or their author’s) origin. Padua is [a] branch of the Po [River]” (Fordyce, Catullus, 384–85).

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loose coats for the oven: This phrase refers to a method of cooking in which the fish is wrapped in a loose-fitting parchment jacket.

96 Calvus: See notes to poem 14. Quintilia: Calvus’s young wife or mistress. Calvus had written an elegy on Quintilia’s death, of which only one complete pentameter survives: “Perhaps her ashes may even be glad of this.” Catullus’s poem is probably a response to it. Quintilia is also mentioned by Propertius in his Elegies 2.34.89–90: This is what the pages of learned Calvus acknowledged, when he sang of his Quintilia’s early death.

99 Juventius: See notes to poem 15. nailed up on a cross: Crucifi xion was a sentence passed by the Romans on three classes of offenders: rebellious slaves, habitual criminals, and conspirators against Roman rule. (They crucified Jesus under the third category.) Cicero called it “that most cruel and disgusting penalty,” and the Jewish historian Josephus, “the most wretched of deaths.” hellebore: Black hellebore was a violent purgative with a bitter, slightly acrid taste. It was used by the Greeks and Romans to treat paralysis, gout, and insanity.

101 This poem was written on Catullus’s arrival at Rhoeteum, in the northern Troad region of Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Through many countries: There is an allusion here to the beginning of the Odyssey: Sing to me, Muse, of that endlessly cunning man who was blown off course to the ends of the earth, in the years after he plundered Troy. He passed through the cities of many people and learned how they thought, and he suffered many bitter hardships upon the high seas as he tried to save his own life and bring his companions back to their home. (The Odyssey, 1.1–7, trans. Stephen Mitchell [New York: Free Press, 2013], 1)

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farewell: The Latin reads ave atque vale, which means “hail and farewell,” or “I salute you, and goodbye.” I left out the vale because “hail” is practically obsolete now (except for “Hail Mary” and “Hail to the Chief”) and there is no good word in contemporary English for it. “Hello and farewell”? Please . . .

104 you: It’s unclear who is addressed here. Tappo: Unidentified. Some scholars think that the name suggests a stock comic figure in Italian farce, a clown, like our Bozo.

109 This is not the last poem in the collection, but it is the last one about Lesbia.

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BIBLIOGR APHY Du Quesnay, Ian, and Tony Woodman, eds. Catullus: Poems, Books, Readers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Du Quesnay, Ian, and Tony Woodman, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Catullus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Ellis, Robinson. A Commentary on Catullus. Oxford: Clarendon, 1889. Fitzgerald, William. Catullan Provocations: Lyric Poetry and the Drama of Position. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Fordyce, C. J. Catullus: A Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973. Gaisser, Julia Haig. Catullus. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009. Goold, G. P., ed. Catullus. London: Duckworth, 1989. Hejduk, Julia Dyson. Clodia: A Sourcebook. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. Janan, Micaela. “When the Lamp Is Shattered”: Desire and Narrative in Catullus. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. Kroll, Wilhelm, ed. C. Valerius Catullus. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1968. Merrill, Elmer Truesdell, ed. Catullus. Boston: Ginn, 1893. Mynors, R. A. B., ed. C. Valerii Catulli Carmina. Oxford: Clarendon, 1958. Polt, Christopher B. Catullus and Roman Comedy: Theatricality and Personal Drama in the Late Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Quinn, Kenneth, ed. Catullus: The Poems. 2nd ed. London: St. Martin’s, 1973. Schafer, John K. Catullus Through His Books: Dramas of Composition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Skinner, Marilyn B. Clodia Metelli: The Tribune’s Sister. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Skinner, Marilyn B., ed. A Companion to Catullus. Chichester, U.K.: WileyBlackwell, 2007. Stevens, Benjamin Eldon. Silence in Catullus. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013. Thomson, D. F. S., ed. Catullus: Edited with a Textual and Interpretive Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Williams, Craig A. Roman Homosexuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Wiseman, T. P. Catullus and His World: A Reappraisal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Wiseman, T. P. Catullan Questions Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Wray, David. Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to Dana Gioia, James J. O’Hara, Jay Parini, and Michael C. J. Putnam for their helpful suggestions, to Heather Gold, my editor, for taking meticulous care of this book, to Susan Laity, the queen of copyeditors, and to Linda Loewenthal, my brilliant agent.

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INDEX OF ENGLISH FIR ST LINES Although I’m worn out, Hortalus, by continual grief, and sorrow, 75 Come on, Flavius: if your girlfriend weren’t, 11 Couldn’t you find, Juventius, among all the people of Rome, 91 Do you think that I could ever insult the love of my life, 113 Egnatius, because he is so proud, 51 Furius, Aurelius, future comrades, 23 Good Veranius and my dear Fabullus, 37 Hey, Volusius’ Annals (yes, I’m talking, 47 I am going to trust my boyfriend to your, 29 I hate and I love. Perhaps you are wondering how this can be, 95 I have your letter before me, its words stained by your tears, 77 I hoped you’d turn out to be a steadfast friend to me, Gellius, 101 I just had a good laugh when someone spoke up, 67 I stole a kiss from your lips, Juventius, while you were teasing, 109 If, beyond expectation, beyond hope, we get what we want, 115 If a man can take any pleasure in the generous things he’s done, 87 If I didn’t adore you, dearest Calvus, 27 If the silent dead can receive any degree of comfort, 107 If you only would let me kiss your eyelids, 61 Lecherous patrons of the sleazy tavern, 49 Lesbia likes to insult me when her husband is at her side, 93 Lesbia’s always insulting me; she never shuts up about it, 103 Lesbius is pretty, so Lesbia likes him better, 89 Little flower, most beautiful of all the, 33 Little sparrow, my girl’s delight and darling, 5 Mourn, oh mourn, you divinities of passion, 7 My dear Lesbia, let’s just love each other, 9 My friend Varus had found me in the Forum, 19 My little farmstead, Sabine, Tiburtine, 57 My mind is so debased by your betrayal, my Lesbia, 85 My Veranius, best of all my comrades, 17 No one, my woman says, there is no one she’d rather marry, 81 No woman can ever say that she has been loved as deeply, 99 Oh, speaking of Suffenus, whom you know, 31 Old Falernian: slave boy, keep on pouring, 35 Our fine Lesbia, whom Catullus worshipped, 71 People say that you’re pretty, Ameana, 55 Please, sweet lady, my charmer, my enchantment, 43

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Sirmio, with what joy I have returned, 41 Springtime now has returned with its mild weather, 59 Tell me, please (I am asking you politely), 69 That man truly seems to me like a god—or, 65 The short epic by my dear Cinna, nine harvest times and nine winters, 105 They say Quintia’s beautiful. Yes, she is fair skinned, tall, 97 Through many countries and over many seas I have traveled, 111 Unless you’re shameless, ravenous, foolhardy, 39 Was it a lioness from the Libyan mountains, 73 What delusion has driven you, poor Raudus, 53 What great fun it was yesterday, dear Calvus, 63 Whom to dedicate this slim book of verse to, 3 Would you please, O papyrus that I write on, 45 Wretched Catullus, stop this crazy longing, 15 You ask, Lesbia, just how many kisses, 13 You assure me, my dearest heart, that this love existing between us, 117 You used to say that Catullus was the only man you desired, 83 You’ll dine well at my house, my dear Fabullus, 25

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INDE X OF L AT IN FIR S T LINE S Amabo, mea dulcis ipsimilla, 42 Annales Volusi, cacata carta, 46 Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa, 70 Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me, 24 Commendo tibi me ac meos amores, 28 Credis me potuisse meae maledicere vitae, 112 Cui dono lepidum novum libellum, 2 Dicebas quondam solum te nosse Catullum, 82 Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes, 50 Etsi me assiduo defectum cura dolore, 74 Flavi, delicias tuas Catullo, 10 Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli, 22 Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi, 62 Huc est mens deducta tua, mea Lesbia, culpa, 84 Iam ver egelidos refert tepores, 58 Ille mi par esse deo videtur, 64 Iucundum, mea vita, mihi proponis: amorem, 116 Lesbia mi dicit semper male nec tacet umquam, 102 Lesbia mi praesente viro mala plurima dicit, 92 Lesbius est pulcer; quid ni? quem Lesbia malit, 88 Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque, 6 Mellitos oculos tuos, Iuventi, 60 Minister vetuli puer Falerni, 34 Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire, 14 Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus, 110 Nemone in tanto potuit populo esse, Iuventi, 90 Ni te plus oculis meis amarem, 26 Non ideo, Gelli, sperabam te mihi fidum, 100 Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam, 98 Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle, 80 Num te leaena montibus Libystinis, 72 O funde noster seu Sabine seu Tiburs, 56 O qui flosculus es Iuventiorum, 32 Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris, 94 Oramus, si forte non molestum est, 68 Paene insularum, Sirmio, insularumque, 40 Passer, deliciae meae puellae, 4 Pisonis comites, cohors inanis, 36

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Poetae tenero, meo sodali, 44 Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Raude, 52 Quaeris quot mihi basiationes, 12 Quintia formosa est multis. mihi candida, longa, 96 Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati, 38 Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acerbo, 76 Risi nescio quem modo e corona, 66 Salax taberna vosque contubernales, 48 Salve, nec minimo puella naso, 54 Si qua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas, 86 Si quicquam cupido optantique optigit umquam, 114 Si quicquam mutis gratum acceptumve sepulcris, 106 Suffenus iste, Vare, quem probe nosti, 30 Surripui tibi, dum ludis, mellite Iuventi, 108 Varus me meus ad suos amores, 18 Verani, omnibus e meis amicis, 16 Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, 8 Zmyrna mei Cinnae nonam post denique messem, 104

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