rustication and retirement. Cæcilius is engaged on a poem "To the Mighty Mother, Cybele," and has excited his mistress's curiosity and interest by recital of the completed half of it. She will not let him go till she has heard the rest. Catullus's opinion of her good taste is expressed in the concluding stanza:—
Fair maid, in whom the Sapphic Muse
Speaks with a richer tongue;
For no unworthy strains are his,
And nobly by Cæcilius is
The Mighty Mother sung."
Of Cornificius as little is known as of Cæcilius. He would seem to have been one of the fair-weather friends who hang aloof when sickness and failing health yearn for the kindly attention and affectionate souvenir. The little poem addressed to him bears evidence of the poet's decline. He is succumbing to the loss of his brother supervening on the laceration of his heart by the unfeeling Lesbia. This may well have been the last of his many strains—certainly one of the most touching and plaintive; and of the translations, we know none that does it justice but Theodore Martin's:—
Is thy Catullus' breast;
Each day, each hour that passes, sees
Him more and more depressed.
