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We beg, if maybe it's not too much trouble, you'll show us where your haunt may
be. We looked for you in the smaller Campus, for you in the Circus, for you in
every bookshop, for you in Jupiter's
holy temple. My friend, on Magnus' promenade I grabbed every girl I saw whose
looks were unruffled, and at the same time I demanded loudly, "Give me back
Camerius, you wretched girls." One of them, drawing back her naked ... "Look!
he's hiding here between my rosey-red nipples!" But bearing with you is a labor
of Hercules now. Do you deny that you
bear yourself in such great arrogance, my friend? Tell us where you will be,
declare it boldly, give up the secret, trust it to the light. What, do the
milk-white maidens detain you? If you hold your tongue closed up in your mouth,
you squander Love's every fruit: for Venus joys in words and talk. Yet if you wish, you may bar your
palate, as long as you are a partner of true love.
Catullus. The Carmina of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers. London. Smithers. 1894.
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