Yes, believe them. O happy news, Catullus! 5
I shall see him alive, alive shall hear him, Tribes Iberian, uses, haunts, declaring
As his wont is; on him my neck reclining Kiss his flowery face, his eyes delightful.
Now, all men that have any mirth about you, 10 Know ye happier any, any blither?
In the Forum as I was idly roaming Varus took me a merry dame to visit. She a lady, methought upon the moment, Of some quality, not without refinement.
So, arrived, in a trice we fell on endless 5 Themes colloquial; how the fact, the falsehood With Bithynia, what the case about it, Had it helped me to profit or to money.
Then I told her a very truth; no atom There for company, praetor, hungry natives, 10 Home might render a body aught the fatter:
Then our praetor a castaway, could hugely Mulct his company, had a taste to jeer them.
Spoke another, 'Yet anyways, to bear you Men were ready, enough to grace a litter. 15 They grow quantities, if report belies not.' Then supremely myself to flaunt before her,
I 'So thoroughly could not angry fortune Spite, I might not, afflicted in my province, Get erected a lusty eight to bear me. 20
But so scrubby the poor sedan, the batter'd Frame-work, nobody there nor here could ever Lift it, painfully neck to nick adjusting.'
Quoth the lady, belike a lady wanton, 'Just for courtesy, lend me, dear Catullus, 25 Those same nobodies. I the great Sarapis Go to visit awhile.' Said I in answer,
'Thanks; but, lady, for all my easy boasting, 'Twas too summary; there's a friend who knows me, Cinna Gaius, his the sturdy bearers. 30
'Mine or Cinna's, an inch alone divides us, I use Cinna's, as e'en my own possession. But you're really a bore, a very tiresome Dame unmannerly, thus to take me napping.'
Furius and Aurelius, O my comrades, Whether your Catullus attain to farthest Ind, the long shore lash'd by reverberating Surges Eoan; Hyrcan or luxurious horde Arabian, 5 Sacan or grim Parthian arrow-bearer, Fields the rich Nile discolorates, a seven-fold River abounding; Whether o'er high Alps he afoot ascending Track the long records of a mighty Cæsar, 10 Rhene, the Gauls' deep river, a lonely Britain Dismal in ocean; This, or aught else haply the gods determine, Absolute, you, with me in all to part not; Bid my love greet, bear her a little errand, 15 Scarcely of honour. Say 'Live on yet, still given o'er to nameless Lords, within one bosom, a many wooers, Clasp'd, as unlov'd each, so in hourly change all Lewdly disabled. 20 'Think not henceforth, thou, to recal Catullus' Love; thy own sin slew it, as on the meadow's Verge declines, ungently beneath the plough-share Stricken, a flower.'