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CATULLUS.
the subject, a burden of passionate regrets, which are mingled with distinct admissions that he knows Lesbia to be wholly past reclaiming. The whole tone of it bespeaks emancipation and return to a free mind, purchased, however, at the cost of an abiding heartache. But was it not time? Would the poet have deserved a niche in the temple of fame, could he have still dallied with one of whom he could write to Cælius Rufus, an old admirer, who had found her out much earlier, in terms we can only approach by free translation, as follows?—
"Our Lesbia, Cælius—Lesbia once so bright—
Lesbia I loved past self, and home, and light,
And all my friends,—has sunk i' th' mire so low,
That in its lanes and alleys Rome doth know
No name so cheap, no fame so held at naught
By coarse-grained striplings of the basest sort."
—(C. lviii.) D.
Lesbia I loved past self, and home, and light,
And all my friends,—has sunk i' th' mire so low,
That in its lanes and alleys Rome doth know
No name so cheap, no fame so held at naught
By coarse-grained striplings of the basest sort."
—(C. lviii.) D.
