previous next

TO HIMSELF RECOUNTING LESBIA'S INCONSTANCY

Woe-full Catullus! cease to play the fool
And what thou seest dead as dead regard!
Whilòme the sheeniest suns for thee did shine
When oft-a-tripping whither led the girl
By us beloved, as shall none be loved.
There all so merry doings then were done
After thy liking, nor the girl was loath.
Then certès sheeniest suns for thee did shine.
Now she's unwilling: thou too (hapless!) will
Her flight to follow, and sad life to live:
Endure with stubborn soul and still obdure.
Damsel, adieu! Catullus obdurate grown
Nor seeks thee, neither asks of thine unwill;
Yet shalt thou sorrow when none woos thee more;
Reprobate! Woe to thee! What life remains?
Who now shall love thee? Who'll think thee fair?
Whom now shalt ever love? Whose wilt be called?
To whom shalt kisses give? whose liplets nip?
But thou (Catullus!) destiny-doomed obdure.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Notes (E. T. Merrill, 1893)
load focus English (Leonard C. Smithers, 1894)
load focus Latin (E. T. Merrill)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (14 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (10):
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 10
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 107
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 11
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 36
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 37
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 58
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 62
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 7
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 76
    • E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus, 87
  • Cross-references to this page (4):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: