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Vīvāmus
mea Lesbia, atque amēmus,
rūmōrēsque senum sevēriōrum
omnēs ūnius
aestimēmus
assis!
sōlēs
occidere et redīre
possunt:
nōbīs
cum semel occidit brevis lūx,
nox est perpetua ūna
dormienda.
dā mī
bāsia mīlle,
deinde centum,
dein mīlle
altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mīlle,
deinde centum.
dein, cum mīlia
multa fēcerīmus,
conturbābimus
illa, nē sciāmus,
aut nē quis
malus inuidēre
possit,
cum tantum sciat esse bāsiōrum.
Let us live, my Lesbia, and love, and value at
one farthing all the talk of crabbed old men.
Suns may set and rise again. For us, when the
short light has once set, remains to be slept and the sleep
of one unbroken night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then
another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet
another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we
have made up many thousands, we will confuse our
counting, that we may not know the reckoning, nor
any malicious person blight them with evil eye, when
he knows that our kisses are so many. |
trans. F. Cornish
This selection is an excerpt from the recording Selections from Catullus and
Horace, Audio Forum, Madison, CT 06443, with the kind permission of the
publisher. For further information, click here
audioforum.com.
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