No More Learning

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.
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? io CATULLUS.
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.
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.
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? CATULLUS.
XIV.
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 !
what syllable earn'd it, act allow'd it ? 5
Gods, your malison on the sorry client
Sent that rascally rabble of malignants.
Yet, if, freely to guess, the gift recherche*
Some grammarian, haply Sulla, sent thee ;
1 repine not ; a dear delight, a triumph 10
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. 1 5
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 ! 20
Now good-morrow ! away with evil omen
Whence ill destiny lamely bore ye, clumsy
Poet-rabble, an age's execration 1
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? 12 CATULLUS.
XIVB.
Readers, any that in the future ever
Scan my fantasies, haply lay upon me
Hands adventurous of solicitation
XV.
LEND thy bounty to me, to my beloved,
Kind Aurelius. I do ask a favour
Fair and lawful ; if you did e'er in earnest
Seek some virginal innocence to cherish,
Touch not lewdly the mistress of my passion. 5
Trust the people ; avails not aught to fear them,
Such, who hourly within the streets repassing,
Run, good souls, on a busy quest or idle.
You, you only the free, the felon-hearted,
Fright me, prodigal you of every virtue. 10
Well, let luxury run her heady riot,
Love flow over ; enough abroad to sate thee :
This one trespass a tiny boon presume not.
But should impious heat or humour headstrong
Drive thee wilfully, wretch, to such profaning, 15
In one folly to dare a double outrage :
Ah what misery thine ; what angry fortune !
Heels drawn tight to the stretch shall open inward
Lodgment easy to mullet and to radish.
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? CATULLUS. 13
XVI.
I'LL traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you,
Soft Aurelius, e'en as easy Furius.
You that lightly a saucy verse resenting,
Misconceit me, sophisticate me wanton.
Know, pure chastity rules the godly poet, 5
Rules not poesy, needs not e'er to rule it ;
Charms some verse with a witty grace delightful ?
'Tis voluptuous, impudent, a wanton.
It shall kindle an icy thought to courage,
Not boy-fancies alone, but every frozen 10
Flank immovable, all amort to pleasure.
You my kisses, a million happy kisses,
Musing, read me a silky thrall to softness?
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you.
XVII.
i.
KIND Colonia, fain upon bridge more lengthy to gambol,
And quite ready to dance amain, fearing only the rotten
Legs too crazily steadied on planks of old resurrections,
Lest it plunge to the deep morass, there supinely to
welter ;
So surprise thee a sumptuous bridge thy fancy to plea-
sure, 5
Passive under a Salian god's most lusty procession ;
This rare favour, a laugh for all time, Colonia, grant me.
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? U CATULLUS.
In my township a citizen lives : Catullus adjures thee
Headlong into the mire below topsy-turvy to drown him.
Only, where the superfluent lake, the spongy putres-
cence, 10
Sinks most murkily flushed, descends most profoundly
the bottom.
Such a ninny, a fool is he ; witless even as any
Two years' urchin, across papa's elbow drowsily
swaying.
2.
For though wed to a maiden in spring-tide youthfully
budding,
Maiden crisp as a petulant kid, as airily wanton, 15
Sweets more privy to guard than e'er grape-bunch
shadowy-purpling ;
He, he leaves her alone to romp idly, cares not a fouter.
Nor leans to her at all, the man's part ; but helpless as
alder
Lies, new-fell'd in a ditch, beneath axe Ligurian ham-
strung,
As alive to the world, as if world nor wife were at issue. 20
Such this gaby, my own, my arch fool ; he sees not, he
hears not
Who himself is, or if the self is, or is not, he knows not.
Him I'd gladly be lowering down thy bridge to the
bottom,
If from stupor inanimate peradventure he wake him,
Leaving muddy behind him his sluggish heart's hesita-
tion, 25
As some mule in a glutinous sludge her rondel of iron.
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? CATULLUS. 15
XXL
SlRE and prince -patriarch of hungry starvelings,
Lean Aurelius, all that are, that have been,
That shall ever in after years be famish'd ;
Wouldst them lewdly my dainty love to folly
Tempt, and visibly ? thou be near, be joking 5
Cling and fondle, a hundred arts redouble ?
O presume not : a wily wit defeated
Pays in scandalous incapacitation.
Yet didst folly to fulness add, 'twere all one ;
Now shall beauty to thirst be train'd or hunger's 10
Grim necessity ; this is all my sorrow.
Then hold, wanton, upon the verge ; to-morrow
Comes preposterous incapacitation.
XXII.
SUFFENUS, he, dear Varus, whom, methinks, you know,
Has sense, a ready tongue to talk, a wit urbane,
And writes a world of verses, on my life no less.
Ten times a thousand he, believe me, ten or more,
Keeps fairly written ; not on any palimpsest, 5
As often, enter'd, paper extra-fine, sheets new,
New every roller, red the strings, the parchment-case
Lead-rul'd, with even pumice all alike complete.
You read them : our choice spirit, our refin'd rare wit,
Suffenus, O no ditcher e'er appeared more rude, 10
No looby coarser ; such a shock, a change is there.
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? 16 CATULLUS.
How then resolve this puzzle ? He the birthday-wit,
For so we thought him keener yet, if aught is so
Becomes a dunce more boorish e'en than hedge-
born boor,
If e'er he faults on verses ; yet in heart is then 15
Most happy, writing verses, happy past compare,
So sweet his own self, such a world at home finds he.
Friend, 'tis the common error ; all alike are wrong,
Not one, but in some trifle you shall eye him true
Suffenus ; each man bears from heaven the fault they
send, 20
None sees within the wallet hung behind, our own.
XXIII.
NEEDY Furius, house nor hoard possessing,
Bug or spider, or any fire to thaw you,
Yet most blest in a father and a step-dame,
Each for penury fit to tooth a flint-stone :
Is not happiness yours ? a home united ?
Son, sire, mother, a lathy dame to match him.
Who can wonder ? in all is health, digestion,
Pure and vigorous, hours without a trouble.
Fires ye fear not, or house's heavy downfal,
Deeds unnatural, art in act to poison,
Dangers myriad accidents befalling.
Then your bodies ? in every limb a shrivell'd
Horn, all dryness in all the world whatever,
Tann'd or frozen or icy-lean with ages.
Sure superlative happiness surrounds thee.
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? CATULLUS. 17
Thee sweat frets not, an o'er-saliva frets not,
Frets not snivel or oozy rheumy nostril.
Yet such purity lacks not e'en a purer.
White those haunches as any cleanly-silver'd
Salt, it takes you a month to barely dirt them. 20
Then like beans, or inert as e'er a pebble,
Those impeccable heavy loins, a finger's
Breadth from apathy ne'er seduced to riot.
Such prosperity, such superb profusion,
Slight not, Furius, idly nor reject not. 25
As for sesterces, all the would-be fortune,
Cease to wish it ; enough, methinks, the present,
XXIV.
O THOU blossom of all the race Juventian
Not now only, but all as yet arisen,
All to flower in after-years arising ;
Midas' treasury better you presented
Him that owns not a slave nor any coffer, 5
Ere you suffer his alien arm's presuming.
What ? you fancy him all refin'd perfection ?
Perfect ! truly, without a slave, a coffer.
Slight, reject it, away with it ; for all that
He, he owns not a slave nor any coffer. 10
XXV.
SMOOTH Thallus, inly softer you than any furry rabbit,
Or glossy goose's oily plumes, or velvet earlap yielding,
Or feeble age's heavy thighs, or flimsy filthy cobweb ;
c
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? 1 8 CATULLUS.
And Thallus, hungry rascal you, as hurricane rapacious,
When winks occasion on the stroke, the gulls agape
declaring : 5
Return the mantle home to me, you watch'd your hour
to pilfer,
The fleecy napkin and the rings from Thynia quaintly
graven,
Whatever you parade as yours, vain fool, a sham rever-
sion :
Unglue the nails adroit to steal, unclench the spoil, deliver,
Lest yet that haunch voluptuous, those tender hands
caressant, 10
Should take an ugly print severe, the scourge's heavy
branding ;
And strange to bruises you should heave, as heaves in
open Ocean,
Some little hoy surprised adrift, when wails the windy
water.
XXVI.
DRAUGHTS, dear Furius, if my villa faces,
'Tis not showery south, nor airy wester,
North's grim fury, nor east ; 'tis only fifteen
Thousand sesterces, add two hundred over.
Draft unspeakable, icy, pestilential ! 5
XXVII.
Boy, young caterer of Falernian olden,
Brim me cups of a fiercer harsher essence ;
So Postumia, queen of healths presiding,
Bids, less thirsty the thirsty grape, the toper.
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? CATULLUS. 19
But dull water, avaunt. Away the wine-cup's 5
Sullen enemy ; seek the sour, the solemn !
Here Thyonius hails his own elixir.
XXVIII.
STARVING company, troop of hungry Piso,
Light of luggage, of outfit expeditious,
You, Veranius, you, my own Fabullus,
Say, what fortune ? enough of empty masters,
Frost and famine, a lingering probation ? 5
Stands your diary fair ? is any profit
Enter'd^z'ww f as I to serve a praetor
Count each beggarly gift a timely profit.
Trust me, Memmius, you did aptly finger
My passivity, fool'd me most supinely. 10
Friends, confess it ; in e'en as hard a fortune
You stand mulcted, on you a like abashless
Rake rides heavily. Court the great who wills it !
Gods and goddesses evil heap upon ye,
Rogues to Romulus and to Remus outcast. 15
XXIX.
CAN any brook to see it, any tamely bear
If any, gamester, epicure, a wanton, he
Mamurra's own whatever all the curly Gauls
Did else inherit, or the lonely Briton isle ?
Can you look on, look idly, filthy Romulus ? 5
Shall he, in o'er-assumption, o'er-repletion he,
Sedately saunter every dainty couch along,
c2
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? 20 CATULLUS.
A bright Adonis, as the snowy dove serene ?
Can you look on, look idly, filthy Romulus?
Look idly, gamester, epicure, a wanton, you. 10
Unique commander, and was only this the plea
Detain'd you in that islet angle of the west,
To gorge the shrunk seducer irreclaimable
With haply twice a million, add a million yet ?
What else was e'er unhealthy prodigality? 15
The waste ? to lust a little ? on the belly less ?
Begin ; a glutted hoard paternal ; ebb the first.
To this, the booty Pontic ; add the spoil from out
Iberia, known to Tagus' amber ory stream.
Not only Gaul, nor only quail the Briton isles. 20
What help a rogue to fondle ? is not all his act
To swallow monies, empty purses heap on heap?
But you to please him only, shame to Rome, to me !
Could you the son, the father, idly ruin all ?
XXX.
FALSE Alfenus, in all amity frail, duty a prodigal,
Doth thy pity depart ? Shall not a friend, traitor, a friend
recal
Love? what courage is here me to betray, me to re-
pudiate ?
. . 5
Never sure did a lie, never a sin, please the celestials.
This you heed not ; alas ! leave me to new misery, deso-
late. (5)
O where now shall a man trust ? liveth yetany fidelity ?
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? CATULLUS. 21
You, you only did urge love to be free, life to surrender, you.
Guiding into the snare, falsely secure, prophet of happi-
ness. JO
Now you leave me, retract, every deed, every word allow
Into nullity winds far to remove, vapoury clouds to
bean (10)
You forget me, but yet surely the Gods, surely remem-
bereth
Faith ; hereafter again honour awakes, causeth a wretch
to rue.
XXXL
O THOU of islands jewel and of half-islands,
Fair Sirmio, whatever o'er the lakes' clear rim
Or waste of ocean, Neptune holds, a two-fold pow*r ;
What joy have I to see thee, and to gaze what glee !
Scarce yet believing Thunia past, the fair champaign 5
Bithunian, yet in safety thee to greet once more.
From cares to part us where is any joy like this ?
Then drops the soul her fardel, as the travel-tir'd
World-weary wand'rer touches home, returns, sinks
down
In joy to slumber on the bed desir'd so long. 10
This meed, this only counts for e'en an age all toil.
O take a welcome, lovely Sirmio, thy lord's,
And greet him happy ; greet him all the lake Lydian ;
Laugh out whatever laughter at the hearth rings clear.
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? 23 CATULLUS.
XXXII.
LIST, I charge thee, my gentle Ipsithffla,
Lovely ravisher and my dainty mistress,
Say we'll linger a lazy noon together.
Suits my company ? lend a farther hearing :
See no jealousy make the gate against me, 5
See no fantasy lead thee out a-roaming.
Keep close chamber ; anon in all profusion
Count me kisses again again returning.
Bides thy will ? with a sudden haste command me ;
Full and wistful, at ease reclin'd, a lover 10
Here I languish alone, supinely dreaming 1 .
XXXI I L
MASTER-robber of all that haunt the bath-rooms;,
Old Vibennius, and his heir the wanton ;
(His the dirtier hands, the greedy father,
Yours the filthier heart, his heir as hungry ;)
Please your knaveries hoist a sail for exile, . 5
Pains and privacy ? since by this the father's
Thefts are palpable, and a rusty favour,
Son, picks never a penny from- the people,
XXXIV,
GREAT Diana protecteth us,
Maids and boyhood in innocence.
Maidens virtuous, innocent
Boys, your song be Diana.
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? CATULLUS. 23
Hail, Latonia, thou that art 5
Throned daughter of enthronis'd
Jove ; near Delian olive of
Mighty mother y-boren.
Queen of mountainous heights, of all
Forests leafy, delightable ; 10
Glens in bowery depths remote,
Rivers wrathfully sounding.
Thee, Lucina, the travailing
Mother haileth, a sovereign
Juno ; Trivia thou, the bright 15
Moon, a glory reflected.
Thou thine annual orb anew,
Goddess, monthly remeasuring,
Farmsteads lowly with affluent
Corn dost fill to the flowing. 20
Be thy heavenly name whate'er
Name shall please thee, in hallowing ;
Still keep safely the glorious
Race of Romulus olden.
XXXV.
i.
TAKE Caecilius, him the tender-hearted
Bard, my paper, a wish from his Catullus.
Come from Larius, haste to leave the new-built
Comum's watery city, seek Verona.
Some particular intimate reflexions 5
One would tell thee, a friend we love together.
2.
So he'll quickly devour the way, if only
He's no booby ; for all a snowy maiden
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? 24 CATULLUS.
Chide imperious, and her hands around him
Both in jealousy clasp'd, refuse departure. 10
She, if only report the truth bely not,
Doats, as hardly within her own possession.
3-
For since lately she read his high-preluding
Queen of Dindymus, all her heart is ever
Melting inly with ardour and with anguish. 1 5
Maiden, laudable is that high emotion,
Muse more rapturous, you, than any Sappho.
The Great Mother he surely sings divinely.
XXXVI.
I.
VILEST paper of all dishonour, annals
Of Volusius, hear my lovely lady's
Vow, and pay it ; awhile she swore to Venus
And fond Cupid, if ever I returning
Ceased from enmity, left to launch iambics, 5
She would surely devote the sorry poet's
Choicest rarities unto sooty Vulcan,
The lame deity, there to blaze lamenting.
With such drollery, such supreme defiance,
Swore strange oath to the gods the naughty wanton. 10
2.
Now, O heavenly child of azure Ocean,
Queen of Idaly, queen of Urian highlands,
Who Ancona the fair, the reedy Cnidos
Hauntest, Amathus and the lawny Golgi,
Or Dyrrhachium, hostel Adriatic ; 1 5
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? CATULLUS. 25
Hear thy votaress, answer her petition ;
'Tis most graceful, a dainty thought to charm thee.
But ye verses, away to fire, to burning,
Rank rusticities, empty vapid annals
Of Volusius, heap of all dishonour. 20
XXXVII.
I.
O FROWSY tavern, frowsy fellowship therein,
Ninth post in order next beyond the twins cap-crown'd,
Shall manly service none but you alone employ,
Shall you alone whatever in the world smiles fair,
Possess it, every other hold to lack esteem ? 5
Or if in idiot impotence arow you sit,
One hundred, yes two hundred, am not I, think you,
A man to bring mine action on your whole row there ?
So think not, he that likes not ; answer how you may,
With scorpion I, with emblem all your haunt will
scrawl. 10
2.
For she the bright one, lately fled beyond these arms,
The maid belov'd as maiden is belov'd no more,
Whom I to win, stood often in the breach, fought long,
Has sat amongst you. Her the grand, the great, all, all
Do dearly love her; yea, beshrew the damned wrong, 15
Each slight seducer, every lounger highway-born,
You chiefly, peerless paragon of the. tribe long-lock'd,
Rude Celtiberia's child, the bushy rabbit-den,
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? 26 CATULLUS.
Egnatius, so modish in the big bush-beard,
And teeth a native lotion hardly scours quite pure. 20
XXXVIII.
CORNIFICIUS, ill is your Catullus,
111, ah heaven, a weary weight of anguish,
More more weary with every day, with each hour.
You deny me the least, the very lightest
Help, one whisper of happy thought to cheer me. 5
Nay, I'm sorrowful. You to slight my passion ?
Ah ! one word, but a tiny word to cheer me,
Sad as ever a tear Simonidean.
XXXIX.
I.
EGNATIUS, spruce owner of superb white teeth,
Smiles sweetly, smiles for ever : is the bench in view
Where stands a pleader just prepar'd to rouse our tears.
Egnatius smiles sweetly ; near the pyre they mourn
Where weeps a mother o'er the lost, the kind one son, 5
Egnatius smiles sweetly ; what the time or place
Or thing soe'er, smiles sweetly ; such a rare complaint
Is his, not handsome, scarce to please the town, say I.
2.
So take a warning for the nonce, my friend ; town-bred
Were you, a Sabine hale, a pearly Tiburtine, 10
A frugal Umbrian body, Tuscan huge of paunch,
A grim Lanuvian black of hue, prodigious-tooth'd,
A Transpadane, my country not to pass untax'd,
In short whoever cleanly cares to rinse foul teeth,
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? CATULLUS. 27
Yet sweetly smiling ever I would have you not, 1 5
For silly laughter, it's a silly thing indeed.
3-
Well: you're a Celtiberian ; in the parts thereby
What pass'd the night in water, every man, come dawn,
Scours clean the foul teeth with it and the gums rose-
red ;
So those Iberian snowy teeth, the more they shine, 20
So much the deeper they proclaim the draught impure.
XL.
WHAT fatality, what chimera drives thee
Headlong, Ravidus, on to my iambics ?
What fell deity, most malign to listen,
Fires thy fury to quarrel unavailing ?
Wouldst thou busy the breath of half the people ? 5
Break with clamour at any cost the silence ?
Thou wilt do it ; a wretch that hop'd my darling
Love to fondle, a sure retaliation.
XLI.
AMEANA, the maiden of the people,
Asks me sesterces, all the many thousands.
Maiden she with a nose not wholly faultless,
Bankrupt Formian, your declar'd devotion.
Wherefore look to the maiden, her relations : 5
Call her family, summon all the doctors.
Your poor maiden is oddly touch'd ; a mirror
Sure would lend her a soberer reflexion.
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? 28 CATULLUS.
XLIL
I.
COME all hendecasyllables whatever,
Wheresoever ye house you, all whatever.
I the game of an impudent adultress ?
She refuse to return to me the tablets
Where you syllable ? O ye can't be silent 5
Up, have after her, ask renunciation.
Would ye know her ? a woman, you shall eye her
Strutting loftily, whiles she laughs a loud laugh
Vast and vulgar, a Gaulish hound beseeming.
Form your circle about her, ask her, urge her. 10
* Hark, adulteress, hand the note-book over.
Hark, the note-book, adultress, hand it over. '
2.
What ? you scorn us ?