If there is any pleasure in a man's recalling the good deeds of the past, when he
knows that he is pious and has not violated any sacred trust or abused the
divinity of the gods to deceive men in any pact, great store of joys awaits you
during your length of years, Catullus, from this thankless love of yours. For
whatever people can say or do well for someone, such have been your sayings and
your doings, and all your confidences have been squandered on a thankless mind.
So then why do you torture yourself further? Why don't you strengthen your
resolve and lead yourself out of this and, since the gods are unwilling, stop
being miserable? It is difficult suddenly to set aside a love of long standing;
it is difficult, this is true, no matter how you do it. This is your one
salvation, this you must fight to the finish; you must do it, whether it is
possible or impossible. O gods, if it is in you to have pity, or if ever you
brought help to men in death's very extremity, look on pitiful me, and if I have
lived my life with purity, snatch from me this canker and pest! Ah! like a
numbness creeping through my inmost veins it has cast out every happiness from
my breast. Now I no longer pray that she may love me in return, or (what is not
possible) that she should become chaste: I wish but for health and to cast aside
this foul disease. O gods, grant me this in return for my piety.
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.