XI
Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli,
sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,
litus ut longe resonante Eoa
……….tunditur unda,
sive in Hyrcanos Arabasve molles,
seu Sacas sagittiferosve Parthos,
sive quae septemgeminus colorat
……….aequora Nilus,
sive trans altas gradietur Alpes
Caesaris visens monimenta magni,
Gallicum Rhenum, horribile aequor, ulti-
……….mosque 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.
…
Furius and Aurelius, friends of Catullus,
whether he penetrates faraway India
where the ocean beats the shoreline of the East
……….at the world’s end endlessly
or whether he ends with soft Arabians, or softer Syrians
or keen-arrowed Afghanis or keener Iranians
or whether where the seven-mouthed Nile
……….muddies the sea with silt
or crossing the high Alps seeing
monuments of our great Caesar
Gallic Rhine, and those ferocious
……….British far off in the distance
all of this or what else Fate may have
in store for us to try together
before we go, would you please tell
……….my girlfriend something unpleasant.
May she live and be well with her adulterers
all three hundred of them, loving none
embracing them all at once, one by one crushed
……….bursting their balls and guts.
She can’t count on my love like she did once;
it’s her fault that it’s cut
like a flower that lived on the field’s edge
……….a passing plow has touched.
XII
Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
non belle uteris in ioco atque vino:
tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
hoc salsum esse putas? fugit te, inepte!
quamvis sordida res et invenusta est
non credis mihi? crede Pollioni
fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
mutari velit; est enim leporum
disertus puer ac facetiarum.
quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos
exspecta, aut mihi linteum remitte,
quod me non movet aestimatione,
verum est mnemosynum mei sodalis.
nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis
miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus
et Veranius: haec amem necesse est
et Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.
Asinius Marrucinus, you’re an ass
if all your left hand can do at dinner is
steal the napkins of unsuspecting guests
caught up in their wine and jests.
You think it’s funny? It isn’t.
You did a very stupid thing.
You don’t believe me? Believe
your brother Pollio who’d pay a lot
to get rid of the embarrassment
your thefts bring him.
How different from you he is.
He has what you haven’t. Wit.
From me expect 300 hendecasyllabics
if you don’t give back my napkin.
It’s one of the gifts Fabullus and Veranius
sent, fine Spanish linen from Spain
and when I look at it I think of them.
XIII
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.
…
You’ll have a good time at my place
Gods willing in a few days, Fabullus
if you bring the food, the wine, the laughs
and all of the delightful guests
then you’ll dine well, Fabullus.
My purse is full of cobwebs
but I will put my love against
all that you’ve brought and spent.
Still you will find I’ve provided the best
because my love’s perfume’s given by Venus
and Cupid, and when you smell its essence
you’ll pray to heaven to make the whole
of you, Fabullus, nose.
XIV
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 suspicor, 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, false, 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.
Si qui forte mearum ineptiarum
lectores eritis manusque vestras
non horrebitis admovere nobis,
…
If I didn’t love you more than my own two eyes,
dearest Calvus, I’d hate you for this gift
you’ve sent more than we hate Vatinianus.
What have I done or said that makes you want
to murder me with dull deadly poetry?
May the gods damn whoever gave it to you
pedantic poems, all rules without a soul.
But if as I suspect, Sulla the school teacher
gave you this, and you gave it to me
as soon as you unwrapped it. May it be a blessing
and not the awful opposite, an effort unnoticed.
Good god, what a really awful book
you have sent to your Catullus
on this day of days when none should die
not even the poets. Come on! It’s Saturnalia!
But no—no, no—This can’t be bad, but good.
Tomorrow when the sun finally comes
I will run to the bookstalls and grab all
of Caesio, Aquinos and Suffenus
all of the absolutely worst stuff
and return to you a torture for a torture
meanwhile, be well all of you bad poets
whose words won’t last beyond your moment.
For you readers who come upon my trifles
Please don’t shiver and shudder
as your hands move to touch them.
XV
Commendo tibi me ac meos amores,
Aureli. Veniam peto pudentem,
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 libet, ut libet 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,
ah tum te miserum malique fati,
quem attractis pedibus patente porta
percurrent raphanique mugilesque.
…
I put myself and my love in your hands
Aurelius. I ask this in all modesty.
If you have ever wished to improve yourself
and do what is good and chaste, leave my boy alone.
It isn’t the people on the street
going here, going there
minding their own business—
What scares me is your penis whose lust can’t tell
the difference between bad boys and good ones.
Aurelius, honestly do what you want
wherever and however you want—
It’s just this one thing I ask modestly.
But if you can’t, and senseless lust
drives you on and on to wickeder faults
you will receive the worst from me as well.
When I string you up in the doorway
shoving radishes into your lascivious guts
I’ll rip out your anus with a wriggling mullet
whose fins will stand straight up when I pull it out.
XVI
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est,
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis,
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
vos quod milia multa basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.
…
You can suck my dick and shove it up your asses
you cock-sucking buggers, Aurelius and Furius,
If you think that I am what you read
I’ll tell you this, a poet must be pure
but not his verses. Verses work to
charm the reader and activate his senses
sensually, and can excite an itch
not for boys where there is no need to
but for hairy old men who can’t move their limbs
and get erect when they wish.
Because you’ve read my thousand kisses,
you think that I’m effeminate? You can
suck my dick and shove it up your asses.
XVII
O Colonia, quae cupis ponte ludere longo,
et salire paratum habes, sed vereris inepta
crura ponticuli assulis stantis in redivivis,
ne supinus eat cavaque in palude recumbat,
sic tibi bonus ex tua pons libidine fiat,
in quo vel Salisubsili sacra suscipiantur,
munus hoc mihi maximi da, Colonia, risus.
quendam municipem meum de tuo volo ponte
ire praecipitem in lutum per caputque pedesque,
verum totius ut lacus putidaeque paludis
lividissima maximeque est profunda vorago.
insulsissimus est homo, nec sapit pueri instar
bimuli tremula patris dormientis in ulna:
cui cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella
(et puella tenellulo delicatior haedo,
adservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis),
ludere hanc sinit ut libet, nec pili facit uni,
nec se sublevat ex sua parte, sed velut alnus
in fossa Liguri iacet suppernata securi,
tantundem omnia sentiens quam si nulla sit usquam
talis iste meus stupor nil videt, nihil audit,
ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit.
nunc eum volo de tuo ponte mittere pronum,
si pote stolidum repente excitare veternum
et supinum animum in gravi derelinquere caeno,
ferream ut soleam tenaci in voragine mula.
…
O Colonia, we want to play on your long bridge
and are ready to jump on it all full of laughter
but we fear this rickety bridge we’re standing on
whose old legs are ready to bend and let us fall
into the mud of the abysmal swamp below.
If folks want to dance as hard as they want
let’s first offer a sacrifice and a little laughter.
I would like one of our townsmen to be thrown
from the bridge head over heels into the mud
of your stinking swamp where you sink deepest
and seem almost bottomless. This man’s as dumb
as you get, senseless as a baby rocking in the arms
of his father because he has a wife as fragrant as a flower
in the spring, and young too, but ripe and ready
as the darkest grape. He has let his sweet ewe frolic
with the young goats not there himself for his own good
but like a tree in a ditch hamstrung at its base by an ax
as unaware of that or anything as if he did not exist at all
hearing nothing, seeing nothing. This fool needs to be thrown
off of you, Bridge of Colonia, into your mud below.
Whether he is or he is not, he does not know
but as he begins to sink it may lift him from his dull
sleep helping him to rise out of the heavy slime
opening his eyes to finally realize the fool he was
like a mule’s loose iron shoe left sucked into the mud.
