Fall 1999: Week 5

GAI VALERI CATULLI VERONENSIS LIBER
LXV

THE POEMS OF GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS
POEM 65

Etsi me assiduo confectum cura dolore
sevocat a doctis, Hortale, virginibus,
nec potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus
mens animi (tanti fluctuat ipsa malis:
namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris
pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem,
Troia Rhoeteo quem subter litore tellus
ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis–
numquam ego te potero posthac audire loquentem,
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.

Though I am worn out with constant grief, Hortalus, and sorrow calls me away, apart from the learned Maids, nor can the thoughts of my heart utter the sweet births of the Muses (tossed as it is with such waves of trouble: for lately the creeping wave of Lethe’s flood has lapped my own brother’s death-pale foot, on whom, torn away from our sight, under the shore of Rhoeteum the soil of Troy lies heavy–shall I never hereafter be able to hear thy voice, never see thee again hereafter, brother more beloved than life? But surely I shall always love thee, always sing strains of mourning from thy death, as under the thick shadows of the boughs sings the Daulian bird bewailing the fate of Itylus lost): yet in such sorrows, Hortalus, I send to you these verses of Battiades translated, lest haply you should think that your words have slipped from my mind, vainly committed to wandering winds: as an apple sent as a secret gift from her betrothed lover falls out from the chaste bosom of the girl, which–poor child, she forgot it!–put away in her soft gown, is shaken out as she stars forward when her mother comes: then, see, onward, downward swiftly it rolls and runs, while a conscious blush creeps over her downcast face.

LXVIII, versus xv-xxxii

POEM 68, LINES 15-32

tempore quo primum vestis mihi tradita purast,
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 totast 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
frigida deserto tepefactet membra cubili,
id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserumst.
ignosces igitur, si, quae mihi luctus ademit,
haec tibi non tribuo munera, cum nequeo.

   At the time when first a white dress was given to me, when my youth in its flower was keeping jocund spring-time, I wrote merry poems enough; not unknown am I to the goddess who mingles with her cares a sweet bitterness.
   But all care for this is gone from me by my brother’s death. Ah me unhappy, who have lost you, my brother! You, brother, you by your death have destroyed my happiness; with you all my house is buried. With you all my joys have died, which your sweet love cherished, while yet you lived. By reason of your death, I have banished from all my mind these thoughts and all the pleasures of my heart.
   And so, when you write that it is a shame for Catullus to be in Verona, where all the young men of the upper class must warm their limbs in an empty bed, that is, Manlius, not so much a shame as a sorrow. Pardon me then if I do not, because I cannot, present you with those gifts which grief has snatched away.

CI

POEM 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.

Wandering through many countries and over many seas I come, my brother, to these sorrowful obsequies, to present you with the last guerdon of death, and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes, since fortune has taken your own self away from me–alas, my brother, so cruelly torn from me! Yet now naught else availing take these offerings, which by the cutsom of our fathers have been handed down–a sorrowful tribute–for a funeral sacrifice; take them, wet with many tears of a brother, and for ever, O my brother, hail and farewell!