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.
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 !
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.
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.
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