Translation:Catullus 65

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Catullus 65
by Catullus, translated from Latin by Wikisource

Elegiac Couplet. The 9th line is missing.

115279Catullus 65WikisourceCatullus
Literal English Translation Original Latin Line

Hortalus, though with unremitting pain, concern
  draws worn out me from the learned maidens,
nor can my mind produce the Muses' sweet fruit,
  my minds surge with such bad things—
for recently in the Lethen whirlpool my brother's
  pale little foot a flowing wave lapped,
which, removed from our eyes, the Trojan ground
  crushes under the Rhoetean shore.

  O brother, more lovable than life, will I never
behold you hereafter? But I'll surely always love:
  I'll always sing solemn poems for your death,
of which kind Procne sings under the dense
  shadows of branches groaning fates of consumed Itys.
But in such sorrows, O Hortalus, nevertheless I
  send you these translated poems of Callimachus,
lest you think that your words, entrusted in vain,
  have slipped perhaps from my mind to vagrant winds,
as an apple sent by a fiancé's secret tribute,
  runs out from the maiden's chaste lap
because placed under the poor forgetful girl's soft robe,
  when she jumps with her mother's arrival, it's cast out,
and in a prone hurry, headlong drives that thing
  guilty blush springs from this sad one.

Etsī mē assiduō cōnfectum cūra dolōre
  sēvocat ā doctīs, Hortale, virginibus,
nec potis est dulcīs Mūsārum exprōmere fētūs
  mēns animī, tantīs fluctuat ipsa malīs—
namque meī nūper Lēthaeō in gurgite frātris
  pallidulum mānāns alluit unda pedem,
Troiā Rhoetēō quem subter lītore tellūs
  ēreptum nostrīs obterit ex oculīs.

  Numquam ego tē, vītā frāter amābilior,
aspiciam posthāc? at certē semper amābō,
  semper maesta tuā carmina morte canam,
quālia sub dēnsīs rāmōrum concinit umbrīs
  Daulias, absūmptī fāta gemēns Itylī—
sed tamen in tantīs maerōribus, Hortale, mittō
  haec expressa tibī carmina Battiadae,
nē tua dicta vagīs nēquīquam crēdita ventīs
  efflūxisse meō forte putēs animō,
ut missum spōnsī fūrtīvō mūnere mālum
  prōcurrit castō virginis ē gremiō,
quod miserae oblītae mollī sub veste locātum,
  dum adventū mātris prōsilit, excutitur,
atque illud prōnō praeceps agitur dēcursū,
  huic mānat trīstī cōnscius ōre rubor.

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