This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
Yesterday, Licinius, in leisure much we played upon my tablets, as became us, men
of fancy. Each jotting verses in turn played first in this meter then in that,
exchanging mutual epigrams amid jokes and wine. But I departed from there,
afire, Licinius, with your wit and charm, so that food was useless to my
wretched self; nor could sleep close my eyes in quiet, but all over the bed in
restless fury did I toss, longing to behold daylight that I might speak with
you, and again we might be together. But afterwards, when my limbs, weakened by
my restless labours, lay stretched in semi-death upon the bed, I made this poem
for you, my delight, from which you will perceive my pain. Now beware of
presumptuousness, and beware of rejecting our pleadings, I pray you, apple of my
eye, lest Nemesis exact her dues from you. She is a forceful Goddess; beware her
wrath.
Catullus. The Carmina of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers. London. Smithers. 1894.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
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.