Gaius Valerius Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 – c. 54 BC) was a Roman poet, the dominant figure among the New Poets (neoterici) of the 1st century BC.

Quotes

Carmina

Here’s my small book out, nice and new,
Fresh-bound — whom shall I give it to?

Cui dono lepidum novum libellum
Arido modo pumice expolitum?
- Here’s my small book out, nice and new,
  Fresh-bound — whom shall I give it to?
- I, l. 1-2
- Variant translations:
- Who shall I give my nice new little book to,
  my little book polished with dry pumice?
- To whom am I to present my pretty new book,
  freshly smoothed off with dry pumice-stone?
  Trans. F.W. Cornish

Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque,
Et quantum est hominum venustiorum.
Passer mortuus est meae puellae,
Passer, deliciae meae puellae.
- Ye Cupids, droop each little head,
  Nor let your wings with joy be spread:
  My Lesbia’s favourite bird is dead,
  Whom dearer than her eyes she loved.
- III, l. 1-4

My sweetest Lesbia let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them: Heav’n’s great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus...
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
- Let us live and love, my Lesbia...
  and value at a penny all the talk of crabbed old men.
  Suns may set and rise again:
  for us, when our brief light has set,
  there's the sleep of perpetual night.
- Variant translation: My sweetest Lesbia let us live and love,
  And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
  Let us not weigh them: Heav’n’s great lamps do dive
  Into their west, and straight again revive,
  But soon as once set is our little light,
  Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
  Trans. by Thomas Campion in A Book of Airs (1601)
- V, l. 1-7

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
- Give me a thousand kisses, and then a hundred,
  Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
  And then yet another thousand, then a hundred.
- V, l. 7-9

Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes
tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque?
- You ask me, Lesbia, how many kisses
  it will take to make me fully satisfied?
- VII

Per caputque pedesque.
- Over head and heels.
- XX

Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.
- For there is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.
- Variant translation: For there is nothing more ridiculous than a ridiculous laugh.
- XXXIX

Like to a God he seems to me,
Above the Gods, if so may be,
Who sitting often close to thee
May see and hear
Thy lovely laugh.

Ille mi par esse Deo videtur,
ille, si fas est, superare Divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
spectat et audit
dulce ridentem.
- He seems to me to be like a God,
  even superior to the Gods, if it is
  permitted to say so, the man who sits
  gazing on you all day and listens to
  your sweet laughter.
- LI
- Variant translation:
  Like to a God he seems to me,
  Above the Gods, if so may be,
  Who sitting often close to thee
  May see and hear
  Thy lovely laugh.

Otium et reges prius et beatas
perdidit urbes.
- Often has leisure ruined great kings and fine cities.
- LI

Ut flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro,
Quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber;
Multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae.
- As a flower grows concealed in an enclosed garden, unknown to the cattle, bruised by no plough, which the breezes caress, the sun makes strong, and the rain brings out; many boys and many girls long for it.
- Variant translation: As in a garden close a flower grows in a nook, unknown to the flock, unscathed by any plough, which winds caress, sun strengthens, rain draws forth; it have many boys, it have many girls desired.
- LXII

Sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua
- What a woman says to a passionate lover
  should be written in the wind and the running water.
- Variant translation: But what a woman says to her lusting lover it is best to write in wind and swift-flowing water.
- LXX, l. 3-4

Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri,
Aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.
- Give up wanting to deserve any thanks from anyone, or thinking that anybody can be grateful.
- LXXIII

Siqua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas
Est homini.
- If a man can take any pleasure in recalling the thought of kindnesses done.
- Variant translation: If there is any pleasure reserved for a man recalling past kindnesses he has performed.
- LXXVI

Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem.
- It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-cherished love.
- LXXVI

Si vitam puriter egi.
- If I have led a pure life.
- LXXVI

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
- I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do it?
  I don't know, but I feel it happening and am tortured.
- LXXXV
- Variant translations:
- I hate and I love. You ask me to explain, perhaps.
  I don’t know. But I feel it happen and the pain is dreadful.
- I hate and I love: why I do so you may well ask.
  I do not know, but I feel it happen and am in agony.

And so, my brother, hail, and farewell evermore!

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.
- By many lands and over many a wave
  I come, my brother, to your piteous grave,
  To bring you the last offering in death
  And o’er dumb dust expend an idle breath;
  For fate has torn your living self from me,
  And snatched you, brother, O, how cruelly!
  Yet take these gifts, brought as our fathers bade
  For sorrow’s tribute to the passing shade;
  A brother’s tears have wet them o’er and o’er;
  And so, my brother, hail, and farewell evermore!
- CI (translated by Sir William Marris)

Si quicquam cupido optantique optigit umquam
insperanti, hoc est gratum animo proprie.
- If anything has happened to one who ever yearned and wished
  but never hoped, that is a rare pleasure of the soul.
- CVII

Simul te aspexi, nihil est super mi vocis in ore,
lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus flamma demanat,
sonitu suopte tintinant aures, gemina teguntur lumina nocte.
- Directly when I see you, nothing is left from the voice in my mouth,
  but my tongue is paralyzed, in my limbs flows a delicate flame,
  By their own sound sing my ears, my eyes are being covered by a double night.

↑Jump back a section

Quotes about Catullus

Modern bust of Catullus

Catullus is a completely sophisticated, urbane poet, and his sophistication is sincere because his emotions were sophisticated. He expresses the spirit and essence of what we call "society".
- Paul MacKendrick, in Classics in Translation (1952), p. 204-205

Catullus was the first Roman who imitated with success the Greek writers, and introduced their numbers among the Latins.
- John Platts, in A New Universal Biography (1825), p. 725

Catullus was the leading representative of a revolution in poetry created by the neoteroi or "new men" in Rome. Rather than writing about battles, heroes, and the pagan gods, Catullus draws his subjects from everyday, intensely personal life.
- Critical Survey of Poetry: Foreign Language Series (edited by Frank N. Magill), Vol. 1 (1984), p. 282

↑Jump back a section