C. Valerius Catullus, Carmina
Leonard C. Smithers, Ed.

I commend myself and my lover to you, Aurelius. I come with a modest request that,—if you longed for anything with your heart which you desired chaste and untouched—you will preserve my boy's chastity from—I do not say from the people: I fear not at all those who hurry along the thoroughfares here and there occupied on their own business: in truth, my fear is from you and your penis, pestilent to boys fair and to foul. Set it in motion where you please, as you please, as much as you want, outdoors wherever you find the opportunity: for this one object I make an exception, to my thought a reasonable request. But if your infatuation and senseless passion push you forward, scoundrel, to a crime so great as to assail our head with your snares, ah!, then an evil fate will make you suffer, when, with feet taut bound, radishes and mullets will pierce through the open hole.