CARMEN CX.-TO AUFILENA.

Aufilena, good wenches with favour we view,

For while taking their price, what they've promised they do :

But you are my enemy, many a time

You've promised and failed me, now this is a crime,

For girls who are honest would do what they said,

And good girls such promises ne'er would have made.
But the worst and most grasping of women would ne'er
Take presents obtained in a way so unfair.

CARMEN CXIV. ON MENTULA.

A wealthy man is Mentula thought,
And that with reason, for there's nought
His land at Formiæ doth not yield.
Game of all kinds and many a field,
Meadows and fish, but all in vain,
For his expense outruns his gain;
The land is wealthy, that I grant,
But he himself's oppressed with want,
So we may praise the estate indeed
As rich, but he's in sorest need.

CARMEN CXV.-ON MENTULA.

Of meadow Mentula's possest

Of thirty acres at the least,

Of land whereon the corn is grown,
Full forty acres doth he own,

His other grounds are like the sea,
Unbounded, why should he not be
Richer than Croesus? one estate
Of his holds all this wealth so great,
Marshes and lakes, and field and plain,
And mighty woods which reach the main,
Or to the furthest north extend,

A vast possession without end,

Huge are these things, but huger he
A man he scarce doth seem to be,
But rather is unto my eyes

A "Mentula" of threatening size.

CARMEN CXVI.-TO GELLIUS.

I once thought, Gellius, to have sent
These lines in Battian measure writ
To thee; on them much toil I spent
In hunting words to please my wit,
That so thy wrath I might assuage,

That from my head thou should'st restrain
The missiles of thy hostile rage,

But now I see my care was vain,

And nought avail my prayers with thee,
So with my cloak I'll foil thy dart,

While thou shalt be pierced through by me,

And shalt with shame's keen anguish smart.

NOTES.

CARMEN I.

The Cornelius Nepos to whom this dedication is addressed was a writer of that time of considerable eminence, and a fellow-countryman of the poet's. He was the author of several historical works, one of which, or a transcript of which, has come down to us, and forms usually the first specimen of Latin literature which is forced on the attention of the reluctant school-boy. The dedication was probably prefixed not to the whole volume of Catullus' poems, but only to the "libellus" containing the shorter lyrics.

CARMEN II.

This little poem, and the following one on Lesbia's sparrow enjoyed a great reputation among ancient writers, and have been as often alluded to and quoted as perhaps any poems in the whole range of literature. Their charm is undeniable, and they would have alone sufficed to give Catullus a high place among the singers of the world. Martial was the first to conceive the idea of the sparrow conveying a double entendre, of the same nature as the "grey duck" celebrated by Pope in his Chaucerian imitation, or the "diavolo in inferno" of Boccaccio's tale, and the notion was supported by Muretus, Politian, and many other learned scholars of the Middle Ages, and occasioned not a few epigrams more or less unpresentable. On what ground the interpretation was based, except on the natural pruriency of the critics, it is difficult to discover: considered as a double entendre the poem at once loses all its charm.

In the seventh and eighth lines I have adopted a reading suggested by Professor Munro, to whose recently-published volume "Criticisms and

Elucidations of Catullus," I hereby beg to express my acknowledgments. He reads "Credo ut, cum gravis acquiescet ardor. Sit solaciolum sui doloris," transposing the lines as ordinarily printed, and making the quieting of her "gravis ardor" not a result but a condition of the solaciolum, a correction which appears on the whole the most plausible and satisfactory.

The story of Atalanta alluded to in the last lines is well known. Hippomenes became the fortunate husband of that swift-footed maiden after fulfilling the necessary condition of beating her in the race. This he accomplished by the simple expedient, suggested by Venus, of throwing golden apples in her path which she stopped to pick up, and in consequence naturally came in a bad second. The moral is obvious, and cannot be said in these days to have lost any of its significance.

CARMEN III.

This poem, delicate in its pathos and perfect in its finish, has enjoyed perhaps a greater popularity than the preceding lines on Lesbia's sparrow. Mr Noel has collected some twenty-five imitations of it in various languages, and both Juvenal and Martial allude to it as a standard masterpiece. Ovid wrote a greatly inferior elegy on the death of a parrot, but it may be doubted whether Stella's lament over the loss of a pet dove would have borne out the opinion of Martial who assigned to it a place superior to that of Catullus' "passer."

CARMEN IV.

In this poem Catullus describes the adventurous voyage he undertook, probably alone in his yacht, from Asia Minor to the Lago di Garda, in the form of a eulogistic description of the pinnace which had served him so well. He appears to have started from Amastris in Paphlagonia, thence through the Hellespont and along the coast of Asia Minor to Rhodes, thence across the Ægean to the Cyclades, and so across the Isthmus of Corinth into the Adriatic, and finally to the Lago di Garda by way of the Po and Mincio. This poem has also been abundantly imitated and parodied, both in ancient and modern times. One of the best known