Most farcical, casting her smiles all around

And showing her teeth like a Gaulish-bred hound.
So stand round her and bawl,

Verses mine, one and all.

Give the tablets, you jade,

Give the tablets, you jade,

You don't care a farthing, you don't feel afraid?
Oh

you base lump of mud, oh you wanton accursed!
Or aught else that is violent and lowest and worst,
This will not be enough, but at least one may place
A blush on the cheeks of her brazen dog's face.
So with yet louder shouting come round to my aid,
Give the tablets, you jade,

Give the tablets, you jade.

But this is no good, no effect we have made

So we'll just change our method and plan of attack To see if thereby we can win the books back.

And so we will say

In quite a changed way

Give the tablets, fair maid,
Virgin modest and staid.

CARMEN XLIII. ON MAMURRA'S MISTRESS.

Thou wench with slobbering mouth, and tongue not neat,
With eyes by no means black, and monstrous feet,
With nose too big, with fingers short and snub,
The Formian's mistress, does the province dub
Thee their prime beauty, do the people dare
Thee with my lovely Lesbia to compare ?
O senseless age, blinded to what is fair!

CARMEN XLIV. TO HIS FARM.

My homestead which on Sabine ground

Art built, or in Tiburtine bound,

For those who wish to please my heart

Give out that thou Tiburtine art.

While those who wish to cause me pain

For any wager will maintain

That thou art Sabine, but for this

I care not to dispute, what bliss

It was thy house again to view!
For then my health had suffered too,
And I had come there to shake off

What I had long endured, a cough,
Which from too sumptuous feasts, on me
Had come not undeservedly.

For Sextianus, when indeed

I wished to eat, to me would read

His speech 'gainst Antius full of stuff,
Pestilent and poisonous enough.

So thus a chilling cold I took,

A racking cough my whole frame shook,
Which flying to thy soothing breast

I cured with nettle tea and rest.
So now to thee my thanks I give
That I unvexed by cough can live,
And that thou hast not on me sent
For this my fault due punishment.
But do not thou thy wrath forego;
That hacking cough and cold bestow
On Sestius, not on me, if e'er

I go again his works to hear,

He ne'er invites me to a feed

But when he's got some trash to read.

CARMEN XLV.-ON ACME AND SEPTIMIUS.

"My Acme," thus Septimius cried,

Holding the fair one to his breast,

"If thee I love not, darling bride,
With passion's maddening force possest,
And so will love through life's long span
As fondly as a lover can ;

Then may I on the Libyan strand,
Or in the parched-up Indian land,
The tawny-eyed fierce lion's glare

Confront, while none stand by me there: "

As from the left before Love sneezed assent,
Now from the right the favouring sound was sent.

Then Acme bending back her head
And kissing the love-drunken eyes

Of the fond youth as thus he said

With her sweet roseate mouth, replies :

'O Septimillus, darling mine,

Who art my life, as I am thine,

Let love alone our master be,

As my soft bosom burns for thee

With mightier power than thou can'st know
Of passion's deep entrancing glow;"

As from the left before Love sneezed assent,

Now from the right the favouring sound was sent.

Thus hath their love with omen fair
Set out upon its happy way,

Loving and loved, the doting pair
Live 'neath a mutual passion's sway;
The love-sick youth doth prize still more,
Than Syria's clime or Briton's shore,

His Acme's charms, while her fond breast
Faithful in love to him doth rest,

In him she joys, and by his side,

Are all her longings satisfied;

What pair more blest than they hath ever been,
Or when hath more auspicious love been seen?

CARMEN XLVI.-ON THE COMING OF SPRING.

(Addressed to himself.)

With spring returned now genial days are seen, The sky which erst with fury fierce had raged 'Neath equinoctial gales, now shines serene

By Zephyr's balmy whispering breath assuaged.

Now, O Catullus, leave the Phrygian plain,
And where Nicæa's sultry land doth lie,
Whose fertile fields are crowned with wealth of grain,
And to fair Asia's famous cities fly.