Читать книгу The Greatest Works of Roman Classical Literature - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 66

I.

Table of Contents

Who shall take thee, the new, the dainty volume,

Purfled glossily, fresh with ashy pumice?

You, Cornelius; you of old did hold them

Something worthy, the petty witty nothings,

While you venture, alone of all Italians,

Time's vast chronicle in three books to circle,

Jove! how arduous, how divinely learned!

Therefore welcome it, yours the little outcast,

This slight volume. O yet, supreme awarder,

Virgin, save it in ages on for ever.

II.

Table of Contents

Sparrow, favourite of my own beloved,

Whom to play with, or in her arms to fondle,

She delighteth, anon with hardy-pointed

Finger angrily doth provoke to bite her:

When my lady, a lovely star to long for,

Bends her splendour awhile to tricksy frolic;

Peradventure a careful heart beguiling,

Pardie, heavier ache perhaps to lighten;

Might I, like her, in happy play caressing

Thee, my dolorous heart awhile deliver!

. . . . . . . . I would joy, as of old the maid rejoiced Racing fleetly, the golden apple eyeing, Late-won loosener of the wary girdle.

III.

Table of Contents

Weep each heavenly Venus, all the Cupids,

Weep all men that have any grace about ye.

Dead the sparrow, in whom my love delighted,

The dear sparrow, in whom my love delighted.

Yea, most precious, above her eyes, she held him,

Sweet, all honey: a bird that ever hail'd her

Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.

Nor would move from her arms away: but only

Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither,

Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.

Now he wendeth along the mirky pathway,

Whence, they tell us, is hopeless all returning.

Evil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus,

Shades all beauteous happy things devouring,

Such a beauteous happy bird ye took him.

Ah! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow,

Our poor sparrow, on whom to think my lady's

Eyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.

IV.

Table of Contents

1.

The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern,

Of every ship professes agilest to be.

Nor yet a timber o'er the waves alertly flew

She might not aim to pass it; oary-wing'd alike

To fleet beyond them, or to scud beneath a sail.

Nor here presumes denial any stormy coast

Of Adriatic or the Cyclad orbed isles,

A Rhodos immemorial, or that icy Thrace,

Propontis, or the gusty Pontic ocean-arm,

Whereon, a pinnace after, in the days of yore

A leafy shaw she budded; oft Cytorus' height

With her did inly whisper airy colloquy.

2.

Amastris, you by Pontus, you, the box-clad hill

Of high Cytorus, all, the pinnace owns, to both

Was ever, is familiar; in the primal years

She stood upon your hoary top, a baby tree,

Within your haven early dipt a virgin oar:

To carry thence a master o'er the surly seas,

A world of angry water, hail'd to left, to right

The breeze of invitation, or precisely set

The sheets together op'd to catch a kindly Jove.

Nor yet of any power whom the coasts adore

Was heard a vow to soothe them, all the weary way

From outer ocean unto glassy quiet here.

But all the past is over; indolently now

She rusts, a life in autumn, and her age devotes

To Castor and with him ador'd, the twin divine.

V.

Table of Contents

Living, Lesbia, we should e'en be loving.

Sour severity, tongue of eld maligning,

All be to us a penny's estimation.

Suns set only to rise again to-morrow.

We, when sets in a little hour the brief light,

Sleep one infinite age, a night for ever.

Thousand kisses, anon to these an hundred,

Thousand kisses again, another hundred,

Thousand give me again, another hundred.

Then once heedfully counted all the thousands,

We'll uncount them as idly; so we shall not

Know, nor traitorous eye shall envy, knowing

All those myriad happy many kisses.

VI.

Table of Contents

But that, Flavius, hardly nice or honest

This thy folly, methinks Catullus also

E'en had known it, a whisper had betray'd thee.

Some she-malady, some unhealthy wanton,

Fires thee verily: thence the shy denial.

Least, you keep not a lonely night of anguish;

Quite too clamorous is that idly-feigning

Couch, with wreaths, with a Syrian odour oozing;

Then that pillow alike at either utmost

Verge deep-dinted asunder, all the trembling

Play, the strenuous unsophistication;

All, O prodigal, all alike betray thee.

Why? sides shrunken, a sullen hip disabled,

Speak thee giddy, declare a misdemeanour.

So, whatever is yours to tell or ill or

Good, confess it. A witty verse awaits thee

And thy lady, to place ye both in heaven.

VII.

Table of Contents

Ask me, Lesbia, what the sum delightful

Of thy kisses, enough to charm, to tire me?

Multitudinous as the grains on even

Lybian sands aromatic of Cyrene;

'Twixt Jove's oracle in the sandy desert

And where royally Battus old reposeth;

Yea a company vast as in the silence

Stars which stealthily gaze on happy lovers;

E'en so many the kisses I to kiss thee

Count, wild lover, enough to charm, to tire me;

These no curious eye can wholly number,

Tongue of jealousy ne'er bewitch nor harm them.

VIII.

Table of Contents

Ah poor Catullus, learn to play the fool no more.

Lost is the lost, thou know'st it, and the past is past.

Bright once the days and sunny shone the light on thee,

Still ever hasting where she led, the maid so fair,

By me belov'd as maiden is belov'd no more.

Was then enacting all the merry mirth wherein

Thyself delighted, and the maid she said not nay.

Ah truly bright and sunny shone the days on thee.

Now she resigns thee; child, do thou resign no less,

Nor follow her that flies thee, or to bide in woe

Consent, but harden all thy heart, resolve, endure.

Farewell, my love. Catullus is resolv'd, endures,

He will not ask for pity, will not importune.

But thou'lt be mourning thus to pine unask'd alway.

O past retrieval faithless! Ah what hours are thine!

When comes a likely wooer? who protests thou'rt fair?

Who brooks to love thee? who decrees to live thine own?

Whose kiss delights thee? whose the lips that own thy bite?

Yet, yet, Catullus, learn to bear, resolve, endure.

IX.

Table of Contents

Dear Veranius, you of all my comrades

Worth, you only, a many goodly thousands,

Speak they truly that you your hearth revisit,

Brothers duteous, homely mother aged?

Yes, believe them. O happy news, Catullus!

I shall see him alive, alive shall hear him,

Tribes Iberian, uses, haunts, declaring

As his wont is; on him my neck reclining

Kiss his flowery face, his eyes delightful.

Now, all men that have any mirth about you,

Know ye happier any, any blither?

X.

Table of Contents

In the Forum as I was idly roaming

Varus took me a merry dame to visit.

She a lady, methought upon the moment,

Of some quality, not without refinement.

1.

So, arrived, in a trice we fell on endless

Themes colloquial; how the fact, the falsehood

With Bithynia, what the case about it,

Had it helped me to profit or to money.

Then I told her a very truth; no atom

There for company, praetor, hungry natives,

Home might render a body aught the fatter:

Then our praetor a castaway, could hugely

Mulct his company, had a taste to jeer them.

2.

Spoke another, 'Yet anyways, to bear you

Men were ready, enough to grace a litter.

They grow quantities, if report belies not.'

Then supremely myself to flaunt before her,

I 'So thoroughly could not angry fortune

Spite, I might not, afflicted in my province,

Get erected a lusty eight to bear me.

But so scrubby the poor sedan, the batter'd

Frame-work, nobody there nor here could ever

Lift it, painfully neck to nick adjusting.'

3.

Quoth the lady, belike a lady wanton,

'Just for courtesy, lend me, dear Catullus,

Those same nobodies. I the great Sarapis

Go to visit awhile.' Said I in answer,

'Thanks; but, lady, for all my easy boasting,

'Twas too summary; there's a friend who knows me,

Cinna Gaius, his the sturdy bearers.

'Mine or Cinna's, an inch alone divides us,

I use Cinna's, as e'en my own possession.

But you're really a bore, a very tiresome

Dame unmannerly, thus to take me napping.'

XI.

Table of Contents

Furius and Aurelius, O my comrades,

Whether your Catullus attain to farthest

Ind, the long shore lash'd by reverberating

Surges Eoan;

Hyrcan or luxurious horde Arabian,

Sacan or grim Parthian arrow-bearer,

Fields the rich Nile discolorates, a seven-fold

River abounding;

Whether o'er high Alps he afoot ascending

Track the long records of a mighty Cæsar,

Rhene, the Gauls' deep river, a lonely Britain

Dismal in ocean;

This, or aught else haply the gods determine,

Absolute, you, with me in all to part not;

Bid my love greet, bear her a little errand,

Scarcely of honour.

Say 'Live on yet, still given o'er to nameless

Lords, within one bosom, a many wooers,

Clasp'd, as unlov'd each, so in hourly change all

Lewdly disabled.

'Think not henceforth, thou, to recal Catullus'

Love; thy own sin slew it, as on the meadow's

Verge declines, ungently beneath the plough-share

Stricken, a flower.'

XII.

Table of Contents

Marrucinian Asinius, hardly civil

Left-hand practices o'er the merry wine-cup.

Watch occasion, anon remove the napkin.

Call this drollery? Trust me, friend, it is not.

'Tis most beastly, a trick among a thousand.

Not believe me? believe a friendly brother,

Laughing Pollio; he declares a talent

Poor indemnification, he the parlous

Child of voluble humour and facetious.

So face hendecasyllables, a thousand,

Or most speedily send me back the napkin;

Gift not prized at a sorry valuation,

But for company; 'twas a friend's memento.

Cloth of Saetabis, exquisite, from utmost

Iber, sent as a gift to me Fabullus

And Veranius. Ought not I to love them

As Veranius even, as Fabullus?

XIII.

Table of Contents

Please kind heaven, in happy time, Fabullus,

We'll dine merrily, dear my friend, together.

Promise only to bring, your own, a dinner

Rich and goodly; withal a lily maiden,

Wine, and banter, a world of hearty laughing.

Promise only; betimes we dine, my gentle

Friend, most merrily; but, for your Catullus—

Know he boasts but a pouch of empty cobwebs.

Yet take contrary fee, the quintessential

Love, or sweeter if aught is, aught supremer,

Perfume savoury, mine; my love received it

Gift of every Venus, all the Cupids.

Would you smell it? a god shall hear Fabullus

Pray unbody him only nose for ever.

XIV.

Table of Contents

Calvus, save that as eyes thou art beloved,

I could verily loathe thee for the morning's

Gift, Vatinius hardly more devoutly.

Slain with poetry! done to death with abjects!

O what syllable earn'd it, act allow'd it?

Gods, your malison on the sorry client

Sent that rascally rabble of malignants.

Yet, if, freely to guess, the gift recherché

Some grammarian, haply Sulla, sent thee;

I repine not; a dear delight, a triumph

This, thy drudgery thus to see rewarded.

Gods! an horrible and a deadly volume!

Sent so faithfully, friend, to thy Catullus,

Just to kill him upon a day, the festive,

Saturnalia, best of all the season.

Sure, a drollery not without requital.

For, come dawn, to the cases and the bookshops

I; there gather a Caesius and Aquinus,

With Suffenus, in every wretch a poison:

Such plague-prodigy thy remuneration!

Now good-morrow! away with evil omen

Whence ill destiny lamely bore ye, clumsy

Poet-rabble, an age's execration!