Catullus
O dear in thought to the sweet husband, dear in thought to his sire, hail!
and may Jove augment his good grace to you, Door! which of old, they say,
did serve Balbus benignly, while the old man held his home here; and which
on the contrary, so it is said, did serve grudgingly after the old man was
stretched stark, you doing service to the bride. Come, tell us why you are
reported to be changed and to have renounced your ancient faithfulness to
your lord?
Door
No, (so may I please Caecilius to whom I am now made over!) it is not my
fault, although it is said so to be, nor may anyone impute any crime to me;
albeit the fabling tongues of folk make it so, who, whenever anything is
found not well done, all clamor at me: “Door, yours is the
blame!”
Catullus
It is not enough for you to say this by words merely, but so to act that
everyone may feel it and see it.
Door
In what way can I? No one questions or troubles to know.
Catullus
We are wishful: be not doubtful to tell us.
Door
First then, the virgin (so they called her!) who was handed to us was
spurious. Her husband was not the first to touch her, he whose little
dagger, hanging more limply than the tender beet, never raised itself to the
middle of his tunic: but his father is said to have violated his son's bed
and to have polluted the unhappy house, either because his lewd mind blazed
with blind lust, or because his impotent son was sprung from sterile seed,
and therefore one greater of nerve than he was needed, who could unloose the
virgin's belt.
Catullus
You tell of an excellent parent marvellous in piety, who himself urinated in
the womb of his son!
Door
But Brixia says that she has
knowledge of not only this, placed beneath the Cycnean peak, through which
the golden-hued Mella flows with its gentle current, Brixia, beloved mother of my Verona. For she talks of the loves of
Postumius and of Cornelius, with whom that one committed foul adultery.
Catullus
Someone might say here: “How do know you these things, O door? you
who are never allowed absence from your lord's threshold, nor may hear
folk's gossip, but fixed to this beam are accustomed only to open or to shut
the house!”
Door
Often have I heard her talking with hushed voice, when alone with her serving
girls, about her iniquities, quoting by name those whom we have spoken of,
for she did not expect me to be gifted with either tongue or ear. Moreover
she added a certain one whose name I'm unwilling to speak, lest he uplift
his red eyebrows. He is a lanky fellow, against whom some time ago was
brought a grave law-suit over the spurious child-birth of a lying belly.
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Catullus. The Carmina of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers. London. Smithers. 1894.
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