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

Sure would lend her a soberer reflexion.

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1.

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.

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.

'Hark, adulteress, hand the note-book over.

Hark, the note-book, adultress, hand it over.'

2.

What? you scorn us? O ugly filth, detested

Trull, whatever is all abomination.

Nay then, louder. Enough as yet it is not.

If this only remains, perhaps the dog-like

Face may colour, a brassy blush may yield us.

Swell your voices in higher harsher yellings,

'Hark, adulteress, hand the note-book over;

Hark, the note-book; adultress, hand it over.'

Look, she moves not at all: we waste the moments.

Change your quality, try another issue.

Such composure a sweeter air may alter.

'Pure and virtuous, hand the note-book over.'

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Hail, fair virgin, a nose among the larger,

Feet not dainty, nor eyes to match a raven,

Mouth scarce tenible, hands not wholly faultless,

Tongue most surely not absolute refinement,

Bankrupt Formian, your declar'd devotion.

Thou the beauty, the talk of all the province?

Thou my Lesbia tamely think to rival?

O preposterous, empty generation!

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O thou my Sabine farmstead or my Tiburtine,

For who Catullus would not harm, avow, kind souls,

Thou surely art at Tibur; and who quarrel will

Sabine declare thee, stake the world to prove their say:

But be'st a Sabine, be'st a very Tiburtine,

At thy suburban villa what delight I knew

To spit the tiresome cough away, my lungs' ill guest,

My belly brought me, not without a sad weak sin,

Because a costly dinner I desir'd too much.

For I, to feast with Sestius, that host unmatch'd,

A speech of his, pure poison, every line deep-drugg'd,

His speech against the plaintiff Antius, read through.

Whereat a cold chill, soon a gusty cough in fits,

Shook, shook me ever, till to thy retreat I fled,

There duly dosed with nettle and repose found cure.

So, now recruited, thanks superlative, dear farm,

I give thee, who so lightly didst avenge that sin.

And trust me, farm, if ever I again take up

With Sextius' black charges, I'll rebel no more;

But let the chill things damn to cold, to cough, not me

That read the volume—no, but him, the man's vain self.

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1.

While Septimius in his arms his Acme

Fondled closely, 'My own,' said he, 'my Acme,

If I love not as unto death, nor hold me

Ever faithfully well-prepar'd to largest

Strain of fiery wooer yet to love thee,

Then in Libya, then may I alone in

Burning India face a sulky lion.'

Scarce he ended, upon the right did eager

Love sneeze amity; 'twas before to leftward.

2.

Acme quietly back her head reclining

Towards her boy, with a rosy mouth delightful

Kissed his passionate eyes elately swimming,

Then 'Septimius, O my life' she murmur'd,

'So may he that is in this hour ascendant

Rule us ever, as in me burns a greater

Fire, a fiercer, in every vein triumphing.'

Scarce she ended, upon the right did eager

Love sneeze amity; 'twas before to leftward.

3.

So, that augury joyous each possessing,

Loves, is lov'd with an even emulation.

Poor Septimius, all to please his Acme,

Recks not Syria, recks not any Britain.

In Septimius only faithful Acme

Makes her softnesses, holds her happy pleasures.

When did mortal on any so rejoicing

Look, on union hallow'd as divinely?

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Now soft spring with her early warmth returneth,

Now doth Zephyrus, health benignly breathing,

Still the boisterous equinoctial heaven.

Leave we Phrygia, leave the plains, Catullus,

Leave Nicaea, the sultry soil of harvest:

On for Asia, for the starry cities.

Now all flurry the soul is out a-ranging,

Now with vigour aflame the feet renew them.

Farewell company true, my lovely comrades.

You so joyfully borne from home together,

Now o'er many a weary way returning.

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Porcius, Socration, the greedy Piso's

Tools of thievery, rogues to famish ages,

So that filthy Priapus ousts to please you

My Veranius even and Fabullus?

What? shall you then at early noon carousing

Lap in luxury? they, my jolly comrades,

Search the streets on a quest of invitation?

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If, Juventius, I the grace win ever

Still on beauteous honied eyes to kiss thee,

I would kiss them a million, yet a million.

Yea, nor count me to win the full attainment,

Not, tho' heavier e'en than ears at harvest,

Fall my kisses, a wealthy crop delightful.

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Greatest speaker of any born a Roman,

Marcus Tullius, all that are, that have been,

That shall ever in after-years be famous;

Thanks superlative unto thee Catullus

Renders, easily last among the poets.

He as easily last among the poets

As thou surely the first among the pleaders.

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1.

Dear Lucinius, yestereve we linger'd

Scrawling fancies, a hundred, in my tablets,

Wits in combat; a treaty this between us.

Scribbling drolleries each of us together

Launched one arrowy metre and another,

Tenders jocular o'er the merry wine-cup.

2.

So quite sorely with all your humour heated

Gay Lucinius, I that eve departed.

Food my misery could not any lighten,

Sleep nor quiet upon my eyes descended.

Still untamable o'er the couch did I then

Turn and tumble, in haste to see the day-light,

Hear your prattle again, again be with you.

3.

Then, when weary with all the worry, numb'd, dead,

Sank my body, upon the bed reposing,

This, O humorous heart, did I, a poem

Write, my tedious anguish all revealing.

O beware then of hardihood; a lover's

Plea for charity, dear my friend, reject not:

What if Nemesis haply claim repayment?

She is tyrannous. O beware offending.

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He to me like unto the Gods appeareth,

He, if I dare speak it, ascends above them,

Face to face who toward thee attently sitting

Gazes or hears thee

Lovely in sweet laughter; alas within me

Every lost sense falleth away for anguish;

When as I look'd on thee, upon my lips no

Whisper abideth,

Straight my tongue froze, Lesbia; soon a subtle

Fire thro' each limb streameth adown; with inward

Sound the full ears tinkle, on either eye night's

Canopy darkens.

Ease alone, Catullus, alone afflicts thee;

Ease alone breeds error of heady riot;

Ease hath entomb'd princes of old renown and

Cities of honour.

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Enough, Catullus! how can you delay to die?

If in the curule chair a hump sits, Nonius;