Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

Oh, is thy voice forever hushed and still?

Oh, brother, dearer far than life, shall I

Behold thee never? But in sooth I will

Forever love thee, as in days gone by:

And ever through my songs shall ring a cry

Sad with thy death, sad as in thickest shade

Of intertangled boughs the melody,

Which by the woful Daulian bird is made,

Sobbing for Itys dead her wail through all the glade. 35

The Lock of Berenice is followed by a conversation with a door, which hints at several immoral stories. The last of the longer poems is an elegy on the death of the poet’s brother, joined with the praises of his friend M’. Allius and of his beloved. This poem is remarkable for the number of digressions it contains, and in this, as in its general tone, it is an imitation of the Alexandrian style.

The seven poems just described contain many beautiful passages, but they show us Catullus chiefly as the learned, skillful, and successful imitator of Alexandrian Greek models. His real genius appears in the shorter poems, which deal with the feelings of his own heart. In these also he is an imitator, so far as his metres are concerned, but the feelings are his own, and he expresses them in words that burn. No translation can do justice to the sharp, quick strokes of his invectives or to the passionate outpourings of his love. One of his favorite metres is the “hendecasyllable” or eleven syllable verse, which, by its quick movement, helps to create an impression of great swiftness of thought and flashing outbursts of emotion. At the same time, the numerous diminutive suffixes employed give a light and graceful, almost playful, tone to the verse. Some of the lines directed against those whom Catullus hated or despised, are scurrilous and indecent; but that is the fault of the age rather than of the poet himself. In general the thoughts and emotions expressed range from passionate love to violent invective, while through many of the poems there runs a vein of half satirical playfulness. Some of the qualities of Catullus’ poetry may be made clear by translations of a few of the short poems. The first shows at once his passionate love for Lesbia, and something of his half-satirical humor:

My Lesbia, let us live and love,

Nor let us count it worth above

A single farthing if the old

And carping greybeards choose to scold.

The suns that set and fade away

May rise again another day.

When once has set our little light

We needs must sleep one endless night.

A thousand kisses give me, then

A hundred, then a thousand, when

I bid you give a hundred more;

When many thousands o’er and o’er

We’ve kissed, we’ll mix them, so that we

Shall lose the count, and none shall be

Aroused to evil envious hate

Through knowing that the sum’s so great. 36

A well-known and especially attractive poem is the playful lament for the sparrow:

Let mourning fill the realms of Love;

Wail, men below and Powers above!

The joy of my beloved has fled,

The Sparrow of her heart is dead—

The Sparrow that she used to prize

As dearly as her own bright eyes.

As knows a girl her mother well,

So knew the pretty bird my belle,

And ever hopping, chirping round,

Far from her lap was never found.

Now wings it to that gloomy bourne

From which no travellers return.

Accurs’d be thou, infernal lair!

Devourer dark of all things fair,

The rarest bird to thee is gone;

Take thou once more my malison.

How swollen and red with weeping, see,

My fair one’s eyes, and all through thee. 37

Like most educated Romans, Catullus had a great love for the country. His joy in returning to his country seat on the peninsula of Sirmio forms the subject of a charming little poem:

Gem of all isthmuses and isles that lie,

Fresh or salt water’s children, in clear lake

Or ampler ocean; with what joy do I

Approach thee, Sirmio! Oh! am I awake,

Or dream that once again mine eye beholds

Thee, and has looked its last on Thracian wolds?

Sweetest of sweets to me that pastime seems,

When the mind drops her burden, when—the pain

Of travel past—our own cot we regain,

And nestle on the pillow of our dreams!

’Tis this one thought that cheers us as we roam.

Hail, O fair Sirmio! Joy, thy lord is here!

Joy too, ye waters of the Golden Mere!

And ring out, all ye laughter-peals of home! 38

33 c. cxiii, l. 2.

34 cc. xi and xxix.

35Translated by Theodore Martin.

36 c. v.

37c. iii. Translated by Goldwin Smith in Bay-Leaves .

38 c. xxxi, Translated by C. S. Calverley.

Table of Contents

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XIVb.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.

XLV.

XLVI.

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX.

L.

LI.

LII.

LIII.

LIV.

LV.

LVII.

LVIII.

LIX.

LX.

LXI.

LXII.

LXIII.

LXIV.

LXV.

LXVI.

LXVII.

LXVIII.

LXIX.

LXX.

LXXII.

LXXIII.

LXXIV.

LXXVIII.

LXXIX.

LXXXI.

LXXXII.

LXXXIII.

LXXXIV.

LXXXV.

LXXXVI.

LXXXVII & LXXV.

LXXVI.

LXXVII.

LXXXVIII.

LXXXIX.

XC.

XCI.

XCII.

XCIII.

XCIV.

XCV.

XCVI.

XCVIII.

XCIX.

C.

CI.

CII.

CIII.

CIV.

CV.

CVI.

CVII.

CVIII.

CIX.

CX.

CXI.

CXII.

CXIII.

CXIV.

CXV.

CXVI.

FRAGMENTS.

II.

IV.

V.

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.

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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.

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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