Horace Ode 4.7

Snows have scattered, now grasses return to the plains and leaves to the trees; earth changes its lot and the swelling rivers neglect their banks; the naked Grace with the Nymphs and her twin sisters dare to lead the choral dances. Lest you hope for eternal things, the year and the hour which seizes the nourishing day warns. Winters soften with the west winds, summer, also about to die, crushes spring, at the same time fruit-bearing autumn pours out crops, and soon stagnant winter returns. Yet swift moons repair celestial losses; we are dust and shadow when we have descended to where pious Aeneas, to where rich Tullus and Ancus (went). Who knows whether gods above might add tomorrow’s moments to today’s total? All which you give to a friendly mind will flee the greedy hands of an heir. When once you die and Minos has made his glittering judgments concerning you, Torquatus, no family, no eloquence, no piety will restore you; for neither does Diana free chaste Hippolytus from the infernal shades nor does Theseus prevail to break Lethean chains for his dear Pirithous.

Horace Ode 3.30

I have completed a monument more enduring than bronze and higher than the royal site of the Pyramids, which not devouring rain, not the wild north wind can destroy or the uncountable succession of the years and the flight of seasons. I will not wholly die, and a great part of me will avoid Libitina: I will grow fresh with following praise while the priest climbs the Capitoline with the silent maiden. Where violent Aufidus roars and where Daunus, poor in (lit. of) water, ruled the rustic peoples, I will be called, powerful from humble, first to have lead Aeolian song to Italian measures. Take the pride sought with merits and willingly ring my crown with Delphic laurel, Melpomene.

Horace Ode 3.13

O fountain of Bandusia, more glittering than glass, worthy of sweet wine not without flowers, tomorrow you will be honored with a kid-goat, whose forehead, swelling with first horns, destines both love and battles; in vain, for he will imbue your cold streams with red blood, offspring of the randy herd. The cruel hour of the blazing dog-star does not know to touch you, you offer pleasant chill to bulls wearied by the plow and to the wandering flock. You will become (one) of the noble fountains too, with me naming the oak set over the hollow rocks, whence your talkative waters jump down.

Horace Ode 3.9

“While I was pleasing to you nor was any more valued young man offering arms for your white neck, I flourished more blessed than the king of the Persians.”

“While you were not more inflamed by another and Lydia was not after Chloe, I, Lydia of great account, flourished more famous than Roman Ilia.”

“Now Thracian Chloe rules me, learned in sweet measures and expert of the lyre, for whom I will not fear to die, if the fates spare her life to go on.”

“Calais, son of Ornytus of Thurii, burns me with mutual torch, for whom I will endure to die twice, if the fates spare the boy to live on.”

“What if ancient Venus returns and forces those separated under the bronze yoke, if blond Chloe is shaken out and the door is open to rejected Lydia?”

“Although that man is fairer than a star, you are lighter than cork and more hot-tempered than the immoderate Adriatic, I would love to live with you, I would freely die with you.”

Horace Ode 3.1

I hate the uninitiated crowd and I keep (it) away; be propitious with your tongues: as priest of the Muses, for girls and boys I sing songs not before heard. Power of kings to be feared is over their own flocks, over the kings themselves is (the power) of Jove, famous for his triumph over the Giants, moving all thing by his eyebrow. It is for (one) man to arrange his trees more widely in his furrows than (another) man, (it is for) this man to go down to the Campus a more well-bread candidate, (it is for) this man to strive better in morals and reputation, (it is for) that man to have a larger crowd of clients: Necessity with fair rule sorts the famous and the lowest; her spacious urn moves every name. For whom a drawn sword hangs over his impious neck, Sicilian feasts will not enhance sweet flavor, the song of birds and the lyre will not lead back sleep: gentle sleep does not scorn the lowly homes of men and the shady bank, not Tempe shaken by the west winds. Neither the turbulent sea nor the savage attack of falling Arcturus or of rising Haedus worries the one desiring what is enough, not vines beaten by hail and a lying farm, with a tree blaming now the waters, now the stars parching the fields, now unfair winters. Fish feel seas narrowed with masses thrown into the deep; hither crowding the contractor throws down the rubble with his slaves and the master scornful of his land: but Fear and Threats climb to the same (place) as (lit. where) the master, nor does black Care leave the bronze-covered trireme, and she sits behind the knight. But if neither Phrygian stone nor the use, brighter than a star, of purples, nor Falernian vine and Achaemenid plant mollifies the man grieving, why with doorposts to be envied and with new rite am I to build a lofty entrance hall? Why am I to exchange troublesome riches for my Sabine vale?

Catullus 64, lines 50-253

This coverlet, embroidered with the ancient figures of men, displays the virtues of heroes with wonderful skill. For, looking out from the resounding shore of Dia, Ariadne sees Theseus leaving with his swift fleet, carrying fierce madness in her heart, nor yet does she believe she sees what she sees. No wonder, since she awoke herself from deceitful sleep, she sees herself deserted, wretched, lonely. But the forgetful youth strikes the shoals with his oar, leaving vain promises to the windy storm. Who, far off, the sad daughter of Minos with sad eyes gazes out of the seaweed (i.e. from the beach) and sees like a rock effigy of a Bacchant. Alas, she looks out and is thrown about in great waves of care, not holding a fine-spun headdress on her blond head, not covered at her (once) veiled chest with a light cloak, not bound at her milky breast with a smooth band, all of which, having slipped from her whole body everywhere, the waves of salt were playing with before her feet. That ruined woman, caring for the plight neither then for her headdress nor then for her flowing cloak was hanging from you in her whole heart, spirit, and mind, Theseus.

(71) Ah, wretched woman, whom Erycina, sowing thorny cares in her heart, maddened with constant sorrows, from that time when wild Theseus, having left from the curved shores of Piraeus, touched the Gortynian temples of the unjust king. For they say that, once upon a time, compelled by a cruel plague to pay for the slaughter of Androgeon, Athens as custom gave a feast of chosen youths and the glory of maidens to the Minotaur. Because the narrow walls were vexed with which bad things, Theseus himself chose to offer his own body for dear Athens rather than such funerals not-yet-funerals of Athens be carried to Crete. And thus pressing onwards with his light ship and with gentle breezes, he came to great-hearted Minos and his arrogant house. As soon as the royal maiden saw this man with her longing eye—whom her chaste little bed breathing out with sweet smells used to nourish in the soft embrace of her mother—such as the myrtles encircle the rivers of Eurota or golden spring leads out varied colors—she did not lower her burning eyes from that man before she deeply caught the flame in her whole body and wholly she burned in her inmost marrows.

(94) Alas, holy boy, wretchedly stirring up furies in his cruel heart, you who mix joys with the cares of men, and you who rule Golgi and leafy Idalium, with what waves you tossed the girl, burning in mind, often sighing over her blond guest! What great fears that woman bore in her weary heart! By how much more than the gleam of gold did she often blush when Theseus, desiring to strive against the savage monster, sought either death or the prizes of praise! Yet promising not unwelcome small presents to the gods she took vows on silent lip in vain. For as an unconquerable wind twisting the trunk with its breeze tears out an oak shaking its branches on the summit of Taurus or a cone-bearing pine with its sweating bark (that one, torn out at the roots, falls prone, far, breaking widely whatever is in its way), thus Theseus lays low the savage thing with its body conquered, throwing its horns in vain to the empty winds. Thence the safe one turned back his step with much praise, ruling steps prone-to-wandering with a thin thread, lest the untraceable wanderings of the maze deceive the one departing out of the labyrinth’s winding.

(116) But why, having digressed from my first song, should I recall more, how the daughter leaving the face of her father, (how) the embrace of her sister (how) finally of her mother, who used to rejoice over her wretched daughter, preferred the sweet love of Theseus to all these; or how, carried on a boat, she came to the foamy shores of Dia; or how her departing husband with his forgetful heart left her bound in the eyes by sleep? Often they say that that one, raging in her burning heart, poured resounding words out of her inmost heart, and then sadly she climbed up the sheer mountains, thence she extended her gaze over the vast swells of the sea; then she ran forward into the opposing waves of the trembling sea, lifting her soft clothes to her bare calf, and sadly she said these thing as her last laments, raising cold sobs with her wet mouth:

(132) “Thus have you left me, carried away from paternal altars, faithless one, on a deserted shore, deceitful Theseus? Leaving thus, with the power of the gods having been neglected—alas, forgetful one! Do you carry false vows home? Was nothing able to bend the plan of your cruel mind? Is there no mercy present in you, that your cruel heart wanted to pity me? But you did not give these promises to me with your flattering voice, you did not order wretched (me) to hope for these things, but for happy marriages, but for desired weddings, which the airy winds snatch away all in vain. Now, now let no woman believe a man making promises, let no woman hope that the words of a man are faithful; for whom, which the desiring mind yearns to reach anything, they fear to swear nothing, they forebear to promise nothing, but as soon as the desire of their desiring mind is satisfied, they fear their words not at all; they care not at all about perjuries. Certainly I snatched you in the middle of the whirlpool of death, and I chose to lose a brother rather than abandon deceitful you in your final hour. For which I will be given to be destroyed by wild animals and as booty for the birds, and, dead, I will not be buried with tossed-on earth.

(154) “What lioness bore you under a lonely cliff? What sea spat you out, conceived, into the foam of the waves? What Syrtis, what grasping Scylla, what vast Charybdis, you who return such prizes for my sweet life? If our marriage had not been pleasing to you because you were dreading savage orders of an old-fashioned parent, but yet you were able to lead me into your abode(s), who, as a servant, might have served you in sweet labor, caressing your white feet with liquid water or strewing your bed with a purple cloth. But why should I lament in vain to the ignorant winds, crazed with evil, which, enhanced with no senses, are able neither to hear nor to return sent voices? Moreover that one is turned in the middle of the waves about now, nor does any mortal appear on the empty seaweed (i.e. beach). Thus fierce chance, boasting too much in my last moment, envies even its ear to our complaints. All powerful Jove, would that Cecropian ships had not touched Cretan shores in the first place; and that the false sailor, bearing harsh tributes for the unconquerable bull, had not untied his rope in Crete; and that this evil guest, hiding his cruel plans with a sweet form, had not rested in our house!

(177) “To what place should I carry myself back? On what hope should I, ruined, rely? Should I seek the mountains of Ida? But the ferocious water of the sea, cutting off with a wide whirlpool, divides (us). Or should I hope for he help of a father? Whom I myself left with my brothers slaughter, having followed a young man? Or am I to consol myself with the faithful love of a spouse? (The one) who flees, bending pliant oars in the surge? Besides this lonely island is inhabited by no home, nor does an exit lay open with the waves of the ocean encircling. There is no means of flight, no hope: everything is silent; everything is deserted; everything offers death. Yet my eyes will not weaken with death, my senses will not withdraw from my body before I, betrayed, demand much justice from the gods and implore the faith of the gods in my final hour. Wherefore, o Eumenides, penalizing the deeds of men with avenging punishment, whose foreheads, wreathed with snaky hair carries before (themselves) breathing angers of their hearts, here, come here, hear my complaints, which I, alas miserable, am compelled to bring forth from my last marrows, powerless, burning, blind with mad fury. Which, because they are born true from my inmost heart, do not allow our grief to vanish, but with what sort of mind Theseus left me alone—with just such a mind, goddess, let him destroy both himself and his own.”

(202) After she poured forth these words from her sad heart, anxiously demanding punishment for these savage deeds, the ruler of the gods with his unconquerable power nodded: with which motion the earth and bristling waters trembled and the universe shook with twinkling stars. Theseus himself, moreover, having sown his mind with dark mist sent away everything from his forgetful heart with commands formerly held in his constant mind and, not raising sweet signs to his sad father, did not show that he safely saw the port of Erechtheus. For they say once upon a time, when Aegeus entrusted his son to the winds, leaving the walls of the goddess with his fleet, he, having been embraced, gave such commands to the youth:

(215) “My only son, more pleasant to me than long life; son, whom I am compelled to send into uncertain chances, returned recently to me at the very end of old age, since my fortune and your passionate courage have snatched you from unwilling me, whose weak eyes are not yet saturated with the dear figure of my son, I will not send you rejoicing with a happy heart, not allow you to bear the signs of favorable fortune, but first I will reveal the many complains in my mind, polluting my white hair with earth and poured on dust, thence I will hang dyed sails from the wandering mast, so that the canvas, darkened with Spanish iron oxide, will declare our sorrows and the agonies of our mind. But if the inhabitant of sacred Itonus, who agrees to defend out race and the houses of Erechtheus, allows you to sprinkle your right hand with the blood of a bull, then indeed make it so that these orders flourish, preserved in your mindful heart. Nor let any age obliterate them, so that as soon as your eyes see our hills, let the yardarms put down the funereal cloth everywhere, and let the twisted ropes raise the white sails, so that, as soon as discerning, I will recognize joys with a happy mind when a fortunate age presents you returning.”

(238) These orders left Theseus, previously holding (them) in his steadfast mind, like the clouds pushed by a swirl of the winds left the airy peak of a snowy mountain. But his father, seeking a view from the highest citadel, wasting his anxious eyes in continuous tears, as soon as he saw the sheets of the dyed sail, threw himself headlong from the peak of the cliffs, believing Theseus lost to his cruel fate. Thus fierce Theseus, having entered his house roofs polluted with paternal death, himself recovered such grief as he had presented with his forgetful mind to the daughter of Minos, who then, looking out at receding keel, sad (and) wounded was turning over many cares in her mind. But flourishing Bacchus was flying from another direction with a band of satyrs and Sileni born at Nysa, seeking you, Ariadne, and roused with love of you.

Horace Satire 1.9

I was going by chance on the Via Sacra, as is my custom, contemplating some (of) trifles; wholly in those. A certain man known to me only by name runs up to me and, my hand having been grabbed, (says) “How are you, sweetest of things?” I say, “Pleasantly as it now is, and I desire all which you want.”

(6) When he follows, “Surely you do not want anything?” I take the lead, but that one says, “That you get to know us; we are learned.”

Here I say, “By this you will be more to me,” seeking pitifully to leave, just now I go more quickly, at times I stop, I say something in my boy’s ear, because sweat is flowing to the bottom of my ankles. “O Bolanus, you are lucky in your anger,” I was saying quietly, because that man was chattering whatever; he was praising the neighborhoods, the city.

(14) As I was saying nothing back to that one, he says, “You want to go terribly; I have seen that for a long time. But you will do nothing; I will hold you all the way. I will follow you hither, to where now your journey is.”

“There is no need for you to be lead around: I want to see a certain man not known to you; this man lies ill far across the Tiber, near the gardens of Caesar.”

(19) “I have nothing which I might do, and I am not lazy: I will follow you.” I reluctantly turned down my ears like a young donkey of a discontented frame of mind when he has undertaken a too heavy burden on his back.

That one begins, “If I know myself well, you will make not Viscus, not Varius a friend of more value: for who can write more verses than me, or faster? Who (can) move their limbs more gently? Even Hermogenes might envy what I sing.”

(26) This was the spot for interrupting, “Have you a mother (or) relatives, for whom there is need of you in good health?” “I haven’t anyone at all; I have buried everyone.”

“The lucky ones! Now I remain. Finish (me)! For a sad fate presses upon me, which an old Sabine woman, her prophetic urn having been shaken, sang to me as a boy: neither terrible poisons not an enemy’s sword will carry off this one, nor a pain of the lungs or a cough, nor a slow gout: a talkative man will destroy this one at some time or another. He will avoid the talkative, if he is wise, as soon as his age has reached its peak.”

(35) It had been come to (the temple) of Vesta, already the fourth part of the day having passed by, and then he was obliged to respond to the plaintiff in an accident, which unless he did (he must) loose the lawsuit. “If you love me, “ he says, “be here for me a while.”

“May I die if either I am strong enough to stand or know civil law, and you know to where I hurry.” He says, “I am uncertain what to do. Will I leave you or my case.” “Me, please.” That one (said) and began to press on. I follow, as it is hard to contend with the winner.

(43) Hence he resumes, “How is Maecenas with you? (He is) of few men and of quite sane mind; no one has used his luck more skillfully. You would have a great helper, one who can bear the second (roles), if you should be willing to introduce this man. May I die unless you might have banished all (others).”

“We do not live there in such a way, (as) by which you suppose. And there is not any purer house than this one, nor one more alien to these evils. It does not impede me at all, I say, because this one is richer or more learned: his own place for each one is.”

(52) “You tell a great, scarcely believable (tale).” “Thus it is nevertheless.” “You inflame (the reason) whereby I wish more to be right next to that man.” “You would wish it only: such (lit. which) is your excellence and you will overcome who can be overcome, and therefore a difficult approach manages men first.”

“I will not fail myself: I will bribe his servants with gifts; if I am shut out today, I will not quit; I will look for opportunities, I will meet (him) in the crossroads, I will escort (him). Life gives nothing to mortals without great effort.”

(61) While he delivers these (words), behold! Fuscus Aristius turns up, (one) dear to me and who knows that man beautifully. We stop. “Whence do you come?” and “To where do you proceed?” he asks and responds. I began to tug at and press his softest arms with my hand, nodding, twisting my eyes this way and that to rescue me. The wickedly witty man, laughing, pretends not to notice and bile burns my liver: “Certainly you were saying to (lit. with) me that you wanted to mention something secretly.”

“You remember well, but I will speak at a better time: today is the thirtieth Sabbath. Do you want to fart in the face of the circumcised Jews?” I say, “Religion is nothing to me.” “But to me! I am a little weaker, (I am) one of many. You will forgive (me); I will talk at another time.”

(72) That this so black a sun rose for me! The unprincipled man flees and leaves me under the knife. The plaintiff in his case comes to confront that man and calls out in a loud voice, “Where to, you most foul fellow?” and “Is it permitted to call (you) as witness?” I indeed proffer my ear. He snatches (him) into court. A shout on both sides, everywhere a running to and fro. Thus Apollo saved me.

Catullus 116

Often seeking with an eagerly hunting mind to be able to send you the songs of the son of Battus, with which I might soften you for us and lest you try to send hostile missiles up against my head, I see now that this labor was taken up in vain, Gellius, and that our prayers here were not influential. We will avoid your missiles sent against us: but, affixed by ours, you will pay the penalty.

Catullus 109

My life, you promise that this our love between us will be sweet and everlasting. Great gods, make it so she can promise truly and that she says this sincerely and from the heart, so that it be allowed to us our whole life to lead forth this eternal compact of holy love.

Catullus 101

Having been carried through many nations and through many seas I arrive at these wretched offerings to the dead, brother, to honor you with the last gift of death and to speak in vain to silent ash, since fortune has stolen you yourself from me, alas poor brother unworthily stolen from me. Now yet under these circumstances, receive these, dripping much with fraternal weeping, which have been handed down by ancient custom of our parents as a sad gift for the death rites, and forever, brother, hail and farewell.

Catullus 96

If anything welcome or pleasing to mute graves can occur from our grief, by which longing we revive old loves and lament once lost friendships, certainly untimely death is not so much a pain to Quintilia as much as she rejoices in your love.

Catullus 87

No woman can call herself as truly loved as my Lesbia has been loved by me. No faith in any contract has ever been so great as has been found on my part in my love for you.

Catullus 86

Quintia to many is beautiful. To me she is fair, tall, and straight-limbed: I admit these individual points. I deny that this whole is beautiful: for there is no grace, no grain of wit in so great a body. Lesbia is beautiful, who not only is wholly very pretty but also, one girl, has stolen all the charms from everyone (else).

Catullus 85

I hate and I love. How do I do this, perhaps you ask. I do not know, but I feel it happening, and I am tortured.

Catullus 84

Arrius used to say “hadvantages” if ever he wanted to say “advantages,” and “hambushes” for “ambushes,” and then was hoping that he had spoken wondrously, when he had said “hambushes” as much as he was able. Thus his mother, thus his free uncle, thus his maternal grandfather and grandmother had spoken, I believe. This one having been sent into Syria, the ears of everyone had rested: they were hearing these same things softly and smoothly. Nor afterwards were they fearing such words for themselves when suddenly a terrible message is brought, the Ionian Sea, after Arrius had gone there, now is not the “Ionian” but the Hionian.”

Catullus 77

Rufus, to no purpose and in vain believed by me a friend--to no purpose? more correctly with great price and evil--thus have you stolen upon me and, burning my vitals, have you stolen from this wretch all our good (things)? You have stolen (them), alas, alas, cruel poison of our life, alas, alas, curse of our friendship.

Catullus 76

If there is any pleasure for a man remembering previous benefits, when he thinks that he is pious, that he has not dishonored sacred faith nor in any contract has abused the will of the gods to deceive men, many joys remain for you in a long life, Catullus, prepared from this thankless love. For whatever men can say or do well for anyone, these have been both said and done by you: all of which have died, entrusted to an ungrateful mind. Therefore, why now do you torture yourself further? Why do you not persevere in spirit and thence both lead yourself back and cease to be wretched with the gods unwilling? It is hard to put aside a long love suddenly; it is hard, but let yourself do this in whatever (way) you will. This is your one safety, this must be completely conquered by you; let yourself do this whether it is possible or not possible. O gods, if it is yours to pity, or if ever you have brought final help to anyone already amidst death itself, look at wretched me and, if I have lead life innocently, snatch this disease and destruction from me, which, creeping into my inmost limbs like a numbness, has driven out the joys from my whole heart. Now I do not ask for that which is not possible, that that woman esteems me in return or that she wants to be chaste: I myself wish to be strong and to lay to rest this foul illness. O gods, give this to me for my piety!

Catullus 72

You once used to say that you knew only Catullus, Lesbia, and that (you) did not want to hold Jove before me. I esteemed you then not only as a the rabble his lover but as a father values his sons and sons-in-law. Now I know you: therefore even if I burn more exceedingly, you are yet much cheaper and more trivial to me. How can this be, you ask? Because such a wrong compels a lover to love more but wish less well.

Catullus 70

My woman says that she prefers to wed no one than me, not if Jupiter himself would seek her. She says: but what a woman says to a desiring lover she ought to write in wind and swift water.

Catullus 69

Do not wonder, Rufus, why no woman wants to place her soft thigh under you, not if you loosen that one with a gift of a fine garment or luxuries of transparent stone. A certain evil tale hurts you, in which it is said a savage goat lives under the vale of your upper arms. Everyone fears this, and no wonder: for the beast is very evil, and the sort with which a pretty girl does not lie. Therefore either kill the harsh curse of noses or cease to wonder why they flee.

Catullus 68, lines 1-40

The fact that, overwhelmed by fate and bitter calamity, you sent this little letter written with tears that I might lift (you) up, shipwrecked, tossed out by the foaming waves of the sea, and bring (you) back from the threshold of death, whom abandoned in a celibate bed neither holy Venus endures to rest in soft sleep nor the Muses delight with the sweet song of the old writers when your anxious mind keeps vigil: this is pleasing to me, because you call me a friend to you and you seek the gifts of both the Muses and of Venus from this (source). But lest my own setbacks be unknown to you, Manius, and lest you think that I hate the duty of a guest, receive by which waves of fortune I myself am plunged lest you seek happy gifts from one more wretched. At which time the white garment was first handed to me, when the flowery age delivered a pleasant spring, I played plenty enough: the goddess, who mixes sweet bitterness with cares, is not unaware of us. But fraternal death has stolen this whole enthusiasm with its grief. O brother, stolen from wretched me, you, dying, you have broken my rewards, brother, our whole home has been buried together with you, all our joys have died together with you, which your sweet love used to nourish in life. At whose death, I put to flight from my whole mind these pursuits and all pleasures of the spirit. Therefore what you write, (that it is) shameful for Catullus to be in Verona, because here whoever from the better known (race) warms cold limbs in an empty bed, this Manius is not shameful, more—it is wretched. You will forgive, therefore, if I do not assign these gifts, which grief steals from me, to you when I cannot. For, as for the fact that there is not a great plenty of writings with me, this happens because we live at Rome: that is home, that is my residence, there my age is consumed; hither one little book casket from many follows me. Although this (lit. which) is so, I would not want you to decide that I do this from a spiteful mind or with a not generous enough spirit, because not enough of either (poetry) has been provided to you asking: I would offer voluntarily if there were any abundance.

Catullus 65

Although care calls me, finished by continual grief from the learned maidens, Ortalus, and the thought of my mind cannot bring out the sweet offspring of the Muses, by such great evils is it itself in turmoil—for the flowing wave from Lethe’s recent surge besets the pale foot of my brother, whom Trojan land on Rhoeteum’s shore crushes stolen from our eyes. Will I never afterward see you, brother more loveable than life? But certainly I will always love (you), I will always sing sad songs about your death, such as Daulias (Procne) sings under the dense shadows of the branches, lamenting the fate(s) of squandered Itylus. But yet in such great laments, Ortalus, I send you these translated lines of the son of Battus (Callimachus), lest you think your words have slipped from my mind, entrusted in vain to the wandering winds, as an apple, sent as secret gift of her promised runs from the chaste lap of the maiden, which is shaken out, placed under the soft cloak of the forgetful wretch, while she jumps up at the arrival of her mother, and that is pushed headlong with a downward course; a guilty blush remains on this one’s sad face.

Horace Ode 2.14

Alas Postumus, the swift years slip by, Postumus, nor will piety convey delay to wrinkles and pressing old age and unconquerable death: not if, however many days pass, friend, you would appease with three hundred bulls inexorable Pluto, who imprisons three full Geryon and Tityon with his sad wave to be crossed certainly by all, whoever feeds on the offering of the earth, whether kings or poor colonists we will be. In vain we will be free from bloody Mars and broken waves of the raucous Adriadic, in vain through the autumns we will fear the south wind harmful to bodies: black Cocytos must be seen wandering with its languid flow and the notorious offspring of Danaus and Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, sentenced to (lit. of) long labor: the earth must be left and our home and pleasing wife, nor of these trees which you tend except the hated cypresses will any follow you, their brief master: a worthier heir will use up the Caecuban protected by a hundred keys and he will stain your pavement with proud pure wine, too strong for the meals of priests.

Horace Ode 2.10

You will live more rightly, Licinius, by not always pressing the deep nor by hugging too much the uneven shore while you prudently bristle at the storms. Whoever approves the golden mean, safely lacks the filth of a dilapidated house, soberly lacks enviable palace. The huge pine is shaken more savagely by the winds, and lofty turrets topple in ruin with a heavier fall, and lightening strikes highest mountains. The well prepared heart hopes in hostile (times), fears the other lot in favorable (times). Jupiter brings back hideous winters, he likewise removes (them). If (it goes) badly now, it will not one day also be so. One day Apollo rouses the Muse being silent with his lyre and does not always stretch his bow. In poor affairs appear bold and brave; wisely you likewise will draw back swollen sails in a too favorable wind.

Horace Ode 2.7

O often lead at the final monent with me with Brutus as leader of the campaign, who restored you as a Quiritis to paternal gods and the Italian sky, Pompeius, first of my comrades? With whom I often broke the lingering day with wine, wreathed (in respect to) my hair with Syrian ointment-plant. With you I knew Philippi and swift flight, my little shield having been not well left behind, when courage broke and threatening ones touched the base ground with the chin. But swift Mercury lifted me fearful in a dense cloud through the enemies; a wave swallowing you down again into the war bore (you) in boiling seas. Therefore render the feast owed to Jove and lay down a side weary from long campaign under my laurel, nor spare the jars arranged for you. Fill the light drinking-cup with Massic causing forgetfulness; pour perfumed oils from spacious shells. Who undertakes to hasten for garlands of moist celery and myrtle? Whom will Venus designate overseer of the drinking? I shall revel not more sanely than Edonians: with my friend recovered it is sweet for me to be wild.

Horace Ode 2.3

Remember to keep an even spirit in difficult matters, not otherwise in good (times a spirit) held from immoderate joy, Delius, soon to die, whether you live sad at every moment or you delight yourself in distant meadow, bent back with familiar Falernian from within (the cellar) through feast days. To what do the huge pine and white poplar love to join hospitable shade with their branches? Why does the swift water strive to waver with slanting stream? Order (them) to bear here the wine and perfumed oils and too brief flowers of the charming rose, while means and age and the black thread of the three sisters allow. You will yield purchased glades and home and the farmhouse which the yellow Tiber washes; you will yield and your heir will posses your riches piled high. Whether you linger under the sky (lit. god) rich (and) born from ancient Inachus or poor and from the lowest race is no difference (when you are) a victim of Orcus pitying nothing. We are all gathered to the same (place), the lot of all later (or) sooner is turned about to leave from the urn and about to put us on a skiff for eternal exile.

Horace Ode 1.38

I hate Persian trapping, boy, crowns woven with linden displease (me); cease to pursue where of places the late rose delays. I attentively care (that) you trouble not at all over the simple myrtle: the myrtle disgraces neither you as attendant nor me drinking under the compact vine.

Horace Ode 1.37

Now it is time to drink, now it is time the earth be struck with a free foot, now it was time to burden the couch of the gods with Salian feasts, comrades. Before this it was wrong to draw off Caecuban from the ancestral cellars, while the queen was preparing mad ruins for the Capitoline and destruction for (our) power with her polluted flock of men foul with shame, mad to hope for anything and drunk with sweet fortune. But hardly one ship safe from the fires lessened her madness, and Caesar reduced her mind frenzied with Mareotic (wine) into true fears, with his oars pressing on her flying from Italy swiftly as a soft dove or the swift hunter a hare in the snowy plains of Haemonia, to give the destructive monster over to chains; who, seeking to die more nobly, neither became frightened of the sword like a woman nor sought the shores with her swift fleet; having dared both to see the fallen palace with a calm face and to draw up the harsh serpents bravely, to drink in the dark poison with her body, fiercer by her determined death, begrudging to be lead as a private (citizen) by savage Liburnians for a proud triumph, not as a humble woman.

Horace Ode 1.25

Wild young men more sparingly shake (your) closed windows with thick blows, nor do they deny you sleep, Lydia, and the door loves the threshold which easily before used to move a lot; you hear less and less now “Lydia, with me, yours, dying, do you sleep the long nights?” In turn as a thin old woman you will weep for your arrogant adulterers in the lonely ally, with the Thracian wind raging more under the new moon, when burning love and lust will savage around your ulcerous liver, which is accustomed to madden the mothers of horses, not without complaint that the happy youth rejoices more in green ivy and blackish myrtle; she will commit dry leaves to the East Wind, companion of winter.

Horace Ode 1.24

What shame or measure is there to desire for so dear a head? Teach mourning songs, Melpomene, to whom the father gave a pure voice with the lyre. Now a perpetual sleep presses Quintilius! When will Decency, and the sister of Justice, incorruptible Faith, and naked Truth ever see an equal to him (lit. whom)? That man fell wept by many good men, more wept for by no one than by you, Vergil. You, pious in vain—alas—ask the gods for Quintilius not thus entrusted. What if you, more pleasantly than Thracian Orpheus, should tune a song heard by the trees, would blood then return to the empty ghost, which once and for all with his frightful staff Mercury drove to his black herd? It is not to open fates with soft prayers. It is hard: but whatever is wrong to set right, let it become easier by the suffering.

Horace Ode 1.23

You avoid me like a fawn, Chloe, seeking her frightened mother in trackless mountains not without empty fear of the breezes and woods. For whether the arrival of spring bristled with shifting leaves or the green lizards parted the bramble, she trembles both in heart and knees. But no harsh tiger of Gaetulian lion do I follow to break you: cease finally following (your) mother, (you are) ready for a man.

Horace Ode 1.22

One whole of life and pure of evil does not need Maurian spears nor a bow nor quiver heavy with poisoned arrows, Fuscus, whether he is about to make a journey through sweltering Syrtes or inhospitable Caucasus or which places the fabled Hydaspes laps. For a wolf fled me though unharmed in the Sabine forest while I sang (lit. sing) my Lalage and wandered (lit. wanders) beyond the boundary with cares disengaged, such a monster as neither warlike Daunia feeds in wide oak woods nor the land of Iuba begets, dry nurse of lions. Put me in dull fields where no tree is refreshed by summer breeze, which side of the world the clouds and evil Jupiter presses; put (me) under a chariot of too close a sun in a land refusing homes: I will love Lelage sweetly laughing, sweetly speaking.

Catullus 49

Marcus Tullius, most elegant of the descendants of Romulus, as many are and as many were and as many will be in other years, Catullus gives you greatest thanks, the worst poet of all, as much the worst poet of all as you are the best patron of all.

Catullus 60

Surely a lion on African mountains or a Scylla, barking from the lowest part of her loins, bore you with so hard and vile a mind that you hold in contempt the voice of supplication in the last and final crisis, ah (you of) too wild a heart!

Catullus 51

That man seems to me to be a god, that man, if it is right, surpasses the gods, who sitting opposite (you) again and again sees and hears you sweetly laughing, (a thing) which tears all senses from wretched me: for as soon as I have caught sight of you, Lesbia, there is nothing of a voice left in my mouth, but my tongue grows numb, a thin flame runs down under my limbs, my ears ring with their own sound, my lights are covered with a twin night. Leisure, Catullus, is a bother to you; you rejoice and exult too much in leisure; leisure has ruined both kings and beautiful kingdoms before.

Catullus 50

Yesterday, Licinius, at our leisure we played much on my tablets, a it had been agreed to be frisky: each of us writing little verses was playing at one time in this number, at another time in that, returning reciprocities through joke and wine. And thence I left, inflamed by your charm and wits, Licinius, so that neither did food aid me nor sleep touch my eyes with rest, but untamable with madness I tossed and turned over the whole bed, desiring to see the light so that I might speak with you and at the same time be (with you). But after my limbs, tired with the effort, lay half dead on the little bed, I made this poem for you, pleasant one, from which you might appreciate my pain. Now beware lest you be rash and beware lest you spurn our prayers, we beg, darling, lest Nemesis demand penalties from you; she is a violent goddess: beware lest she harm (you).

Catullus 46

Now spring brings back unchilled warmth, now the madness of the equinoctial sky grows quiet with the pleasant breezes of the Zephyr. May the Phrygian fields be left, Catullus, and the rich land of steamy Nicaea: let us fly to the bright cities of Asia. Now the anticipating mind yearns to wander, now happy feet grow strong with eagerness. O sweet band of companions, goodbye, whom, having set off far from home, varied roads call back variously.

Catullus 45

Septimius, holding Acme, his love(s), in his lap, said “My Acme, unless I love you to destruction, I am prepared to love (you) hereafter continuously for all the years, as much as one who is able to die entirely, let me come alone in Lydia and scorched India in the path of a grey eyed lion.” As he said this, Love sneezed his approval on the left as before on the right. But Acme, lifting up her head lightly and having kissed the intoxicated eyes of the sweet boy with that rosy mouth said thus, “My life, little Septimius, thus let us serve continuously this one master so that a greater and sharper fire burns more sweetly in my soft marrow.” As she said this Love sneezed his approval on the left as before on the right. Now having set out from a good auspice they love (and) are loved with equal spirits. Wretched little Septimius wanted his one Acme more than Syrias and Brittains: faithful Acme makes delights and pleasures in Septimius alone. Who has seen any happier men, who (has seen) a more auspicious Venus?

Catullus 44

Our farm, whether Sabine or Tibertine—for the say that you are Tibertine, for whom it is not in their heart to hurt Catullus; but for whom it is in the heart, at whatever bet they contend that you are Sabine—but whether you are Sabine or more truly Tibertine, I was gladly in your villa close to the city, and I drove out a bad cough, which my belly gave to me not undeserving while I sought (lit. am seeking) a rich dinner. For while I wanted to be Sestius’ dinner companion, I read his speech against the candidate Antius, full of poison and pestilence. Hereupon a chill head-cold and frequent cough shook me right up until I fled into your lap and restored myself with both rest and nettle. Therefore restored, I give you greatest thanks because you did not avenge my error. Nor now do pray if I receive horrible writings of Sestius but that the chill bear a head-cold and cough not to me but to Sestius, who calls me then when I read (his) bad book.

Catullus 43

Greetings girl with neither a short nose nor a pretty foot nor black eyes nor long fingers not a dry mouth nor an entirely elegant tongue. Girlfriend of the debtor Formianus, does the province say that your are pretty? Are you to be compared with our Lesbia? O unwise and graceless age!

Catullus 40

What evil intention drives you, wretched little Ravidus, headlong into my iambs? What gods, not well called, prepares to excite frenzied quarrels for you? Or (do you do this) to arrive in the face of the crowd? What do you want? Do you hope to be well-known by whatever means? You will be, since the time when you wanted to love my love(s) with a long penalty.

Catullus 36

Chronicles of Volusus, poop-y paper, fulfill a vow for my girl. For she vowed sacred Venus and Cupid that if I would be returned to her and I would cease to brandish my fierce iambs, she would give choicest writings of the worst poet to be burned for the slow-footed god in unlucky stumps. And the worst girl perceives that she vows this wittily to the jesting gods. Now, (goddess) begotten from the cerulean sea, you who inhabit sacred Idalium and open Urii and (you) who (inhabit) Ancon and reedy Cnidus, and (you) who (inhabit) Amathus and (you) who (inhabit) Golgi and (you) who (inhabit) the Durrachian inn of the Adriatic, make the vow accepted and rendered , if it is not witless and charmless. But you, meanwhile, come into the fire, full of the country and crudities, Chronicals of Volusus, poop-y paper.

Catullus 35

Papyrus, I would that you tell Caecilius, the tender poet, my comrade, to come to Verona, leaving the walls of Novum Comum and the shore of Larius Lacus: for I want him to hear some thoughts of his friend and mine. Therefore, if he is wise, he will eat up the road, however thousands of times a fair girl calls him back as he goes, and, throwing both hands around his neck, asks him to delay. Who now, if true things are reported to me, loves him to death with wild love: for from which time she read his unfinished mistress of Dindymus, from that time wretched little fires have been eating (lit. eat) her inner marrow. I forgive you, girl wiser than the Sapphic muse: for Caecilius’ Great Mother is charmingly unfinished.

Catullus 31

Darling of almost islands and of islands, Sirmio, whatever each Neptune bears in calm waters and the vast sea, how freely and how happily I see you, myself scarcely believing that I have left Thynia and Bithynian fields and see you in safety. O what is happier than loosed anxieties, when the mind puts down its burden, and, weary from wandering work, we come to our own Lar and we rest in (our) longed-for bed? This is one which is for such labors. Greetings, o lovely Sirmio, and rejoice with your rejoicing master; and you, o lake of Lydian water, laugh whatever there is of laughter at home.

Catullus 30

Alfenus, forgetful and false of my like-minded buddies, does nothing pain you about (lit. of) your sweet friend, unfeeling one? Now do you not hesitate to betray me, now (do you not hesitate) to fail me? Now impious deeds of deceitful men please the sky-dwellers which you neglect and abandon me, wretched in evils. Alas, what may men do, tell me, or in whom might they have faith? Certainly you used to order me to hand over my heart, unfair one, leading me into love, as if everything would be safe for me. Likewise now you draw yourself back and you allow the wind and airy clouds to carry all your words and deeds in vain. If you have forgotten, yet the gods remember, Faith remembers, who will make it so you regret your deed afterward.

Catullus 22

That Suffenus, Varus, whom you know well, is a charming man and witty and urbane, and the same man makes very, very many verses. I think that he has a thousand or ten (thousand) or more written, nor thus, as it is done, recorded on palimpsest: royal pages, new books, new scroll ends, red ties, covers, lines with lead and everything leveled with pumice. When you read these, that fine and urbane one Suffenus seems on the contrary a goat-herder or a ditch-digger, so does he differ and change. Why do we think this is? Who once seemed a wit or if there is anything wittier than this thing, the same man is more witless than a witless rube as soon as he touches poetry, and likewise never is he as happy as when he writes poetry, he so rejoices in himself an he himself wonders at himself. We all are too deceived similarly, and there is no one whom you cannot see as a Suffenus in some matter. His own error is attributed to each, but we do not see (of) the knapsack which is on (our) back.

Horace Ode 1.13

When you praise the rosy neck of Telephus, the waxy arms of Telephus, alas, my boiling liver swells with intractable bile, Lydia. Then neither my mind nor my complexion stays in a fix seat, and a moisture secretly slips onto my cheeks, arguing how deeply I am stewed with soft fires. I burn whether quarrels immoderate with wine foul your white shoulders or the mad boy presses a tale-tell mark with his tooth on your lips. If you would hear me enough you would not hope him evermore harming—barbarically—sweet lips (lit. kisses) which Venus has steeped in the quintessence of her own nectar. Three times lucky and more (are they) whom unbroken embrace holds nor a love torn by evil complaints releases earlier (lit. more swiftly) than the last day.

Horace Ode 1.11

You, do not ask—it is not right to know—what end for me, what for you the gods have given, Leuconoe, nor try Babylonian numerology. How much better to endure whatever will be, whether more winters or the last Jupiter has allotted, which now wears out the Tyrrhenian Sea on the rocks opposite. Be wise, strain the wine, and cut long hope back to our short time. While we speak, envious time will have flown: seize the day, trust as little as possible to the future.

Horace Ode 1.9

You see how Soracte stands white with deep snow and now the laboring trees do not bear their burden and the rivers halted with sharp ice. Melt the cold, heaping logs plentifully over the hearth and more generously draw off the four year old Sabine wine from the jug, Thaliarchus. Leave the rest to the gods, (who) once they calm the winds battling with the roiling water, neither cypresses not ancient ash trees are bothered. Do not ask what will be tomorrow, and put down as gain whatever of days Chance will give, as a boy spurn neither sweet loves nor the dances, while gloomy white hair is gone from green (youth). Now both the field and the plazas and the soft whispers at nightfall at the appointed hour are to be sought, now both the pleasing laugh from farthest corner, betrayer of the hidden girl, and the pledge stolen from arms or finger badly resisting.

Horace Ode 1.5

What slender boy, soaked in liquid scents, presses you in much rose under the pleasant grotto, Pyrrha? For whom do you tie up your yellow hair, simple in its complexities? Alas! how many times will he weep for changed faith and gods and, unaccustomed, wonder at seas rough with black winds, who now uses you, believing (you) golden, who hopes (you will be) always available, always lovable, unknowing the deceitful breeze. Wretches, for whom you shine untried. A sacred wall with a votive tablet marks that I have hung up my soaking garments to the powerful god of the sea.

Horace Ode 1.1

Maecenas, born from ancient kings, o! both my bulwark and sweet glory, there are (those) whom it pleases to have gathered Olympic dust on their chariot and the turning post cleared by the hot wheels, and the noble palm lifts the lords of the lands to the gods; (it pleases) this man, if the crowd of mobile Quirites strives to lift with triple honors, that man if he has stored away in his own granary whatever is turned up from Libyan threshing-floors. You would never move with the terms of Attalus the one rejoicing to split his paternal fields with a hoe to cut the Myrtoan sea as a fearful sailor in a Cyprian boat (lit. log). The merchant fearing the African wind striving with Icarian waves praises leisure and the fields of his own town; soon he refits his shaken ships, not taught to endure poverty. There is one who spurns neither cups of old Massican (wine) nor to subtract part from the work day, having spread his limbs now under the green arbutus, now at the gentle head of a sacred water. Camps please many and the sound of the trumpet mixed with the horn and wars hated by mothers. The hunter remains under a cold Jove forgetful of his tender wife if a deer has been seen by his faithful pups or a Marsian boar bursts the close-twisted nets. Prizes of the ivy of the learned brows mix me with the gods above, the chill grove and the light choruses of Nymphs with Satyrs separate me from the people, if neither Euterpe withholds the flutes nor Polyhymnia refuses to offer the Lesbian lyre. But if you count me among the lyric prophets, I shall strike the stars with my lofty head.

Catullus 14

Unless I love you more than my own eyes, most pleasant Calvus, I would hate you for that gift with Vatianan hatred: for what have I done or what have I said that you ruin me badly with so many poets? May the gods give many evils to that client who sent you so many soundrels. But if, as I suspect, Sulla the schoolteacher gave you this newly discovered gift , it is not bad for me but good and blessed, because your labors are not for nothing. Great gods, (what a) horrible and detestable little book! Which you clearly sent to your Catullus to kill (him) this very day, the Saturnalia, best of days! No, witty one, this will not escape you so. For, if it becomes light, I will run to the stalls of the booksellers; I will collect Caesii, Aquini, Suffenus—all the poisons—and I will pay you back for these punishments. You, meanwhile, goodbye, get away from here to this place from where you bore (your) evil foot, misfortunes of (our) age, worst poets.

Catullus 13

You will dine well, my Fabullus, at my house in a few days, if the gods favor you, if you bring with you a good, large meal, not without a fair girls and wine and wit and all the laughs; if you bring these, I say, my charming one, you will dine well; for the purse of your Catullus is full of cobwebs. But in return you will receive my love or what is more pleasant and elegant: for I will give a perfume which Venuses and Cupids gave my girl; which when your smell it, you will ask the gods to make you all nose, Fabullus.

Catullus 12

Marrucinus Asinius, you do not use (your) left hand well in joke and wine, you steal the napkins of the too careless. You think that this is witty? It escapes you, gauche fellow: it is as tacky and graceless as you like. You do not believe me? Believe Pollio, (your) brother, who would like your thefts to be exchanged even for a talent; for he is a boy stuffed full of charms and wits. Therefore, either expect 300 hendecasyllables or return the napkin to me, which does not move me by its cost but is a keepsake of my comrade. For Fabullus and Veranius sent Saetaban cloths from Spain to me; it is necessary that I love these as my little Veranius and Fabullus.

Catullus 11

Furius and Aurelius, comrades of Catullus, whether he will make his way among the farthest Indians as the shore is pounded afar by the resounding Eastern wave, or among the Hyrcani or soft Arabs, or the Sagae or the arrow-bearing Parthians, or what waters the seven-mouthed Nile colors, or he will walk across the lofty Alps, seeing the monuments of great Caesar, the Gallic Rhine, the rough water, and the farthest Britons, prepared to try all these things at the same time, whatever the will of the sky-dwellers bears, report a few not-good words to my girl: let her live and be well with her adulterers, whom having embraced she holds three hundred at a time, loving none truly, but at the same time breaking the thighs of all, and let her not look for my love as before, which the fault of that one has fallen like a flower at the edge of a field after it has been touched by a passing plow.

Catullus 10

My Varus had lead me at my leisure from the Forum to see his love: a little tart (as it then seemed immediately to me) not entirely without wit or grace; as we arrived here, various conversations fell to us, among which how (lit. what) was Bithynia now, in what way it kept itself, and with what money it had profited me. I responded this which was: there was nothing, neither for the (inhabitants) themselves nor for the praetors nor for the staff, why anyone took back a more oily head: especially for (those) who had a jerk praetor, and he did not value (lit. make) his staff for a hair. “But certainly yet,” they say, “you obtained (this) which is said to be born there, men for your litter.” I say (as to make myself one better for the girl), “It was not so bad for me that because a bad province had fallen (to me) that I could not obtain eight sturdy men.” (But I had not one, neither here nor there, who could put the broken foot of an old couch on his shoulder.) Here that one said, as befitted a slut, “Please, my Catullus, lend them to me a little while; for I want to be born to Serapis.” “Hold on,” I said to the girl, “That which I had said just now that I had. . .reason fled me: my buddy, it is Gaius Cinna—this one got (them) for himself. But whether his or mine, what (is it) to me? I use (them) as well as (if) I had gotten (them) for myself. But you witless, evil girl, you live poorly around whom it is not permitted to be sloppy.”

Catullus 9

Veranus, standing out for me from all my 300,000 friends, have you come home to your household gods and your likeminded brothers and aged mother? You have come! O messages blessed to me! I will see you safe and hear you telling the places, deeds, nations of the Spaniards, as is your custom, and pressing your sweet neck I will kiss your face and eyes. O as much is of the more blessed people, what is happier or more blessed than me?

Catullus 8

Wretched Catullus, stop being a fool, consider lost what you see has been lost. Bright suns once shone for you when you used to come frequently to where your girl was leading, loved by us as no woman will be loved; then when those many jokes were made, which you wished for nor did your girl did not want, bright suns truly shone for you. Now that woman does not want; you too, powerless one, do not want! Neither chase what flees, nor live miserable, but with obstinate mind, endure, be firm! Goodbye girl, now Catullus is firm, neither will he miss you, nor will he ask you unwilling. But you will grieve when you will not be asked. Wicked woman, woe to you! What life remains for you? Who will approach you now? To whom will you seem beautiful? Whom will you love now? Whose will you be said to be? Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite? But you, Catullus, stubborn, be firm.

Catullus 7

You ask me how many kisses of yours, Lesbia, are enough and too many. As great the number of the Libyan sand lies on silphium-bearing Cyrene between the oracle of sweltering Jove and sacred tomb of old Battus; or as the many stars, when the night is quiet, see the furtive loves of humans: that you kiss so many kisses is enough and too many for (your) mad Catullus, which neither busybodies can count nor an evil tongue (is able) to curse.

Catullus 6

Flavius, unless she were ungraceful and inelegant,
you would wish to declare your darling to Catullus
and you would not be able to be quiet.
But in fact you love some kind of feverish prostitute:
It is shameful to confess this.
For your couch, silent in vain, smelling with garlands and Syrian olive, shouts
That you do not lie through celibate nights,
and your pillow equally worn both this one and that one,
and the shaken, creaking and walking of your trembling bed.
For it avails nothing to be silent about your debauchery
You would not reveal such worn out sides
Unless you were doing something gauche.
Wherefore, whatever you have of good and evil, tell us!
I wish to call you and your girl to the sky with my charming verse.

Catullus 5

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us value all the rumors of the too harsh old men at one penny! Suns are able to set and return; as soon as the brief light sets for us, one perpetual night must be slept. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred; then another thousand, then a second hundred; still another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we have made many thousands, we will confuse them, lest we know, or lest some evil man can envy, when he knows how many kisses there are.

Catullus 4

That ship which you see, guests, says that it was the fastest of ships, and it denies that the speed of any floating timber surpasses, whether work will be to fly by oars or sail. And it says that the shore of threatening Adriadic does not deny this (speed), or the Cycladic islands and noble Rhodes and terrible Thracian Propontians or the ferocious bay (where that later skiff was before leafy forest—for on the Cytorian ridge it often yielded a whispering sound). (O) Amastris sea and boxwood-bearing Cytorus, the skiff says that these things were and are very well-known to you. It says that it stood on your peak from its ultimate beginning, it drenched its oars in your water; and thence through so many wild straits it carried its master, (whether) a left or right wind calls, or a favorable Jupiter fell upon each sail at the same time; nor were any vows made for itself to the shore gods, when it came from the newest sea right up to this clear lake. But these things were before; now it is old in its quiet rest, and dedicates itself to you , little twin Castor and the little twin of Castor.

Catullus 3

Mourn, oh Venuses and Cupids,
and whatever there is of the more charming people:
The sparrow of my girl is dead,
the sparrow, delight of my girl,
which she used to love more than her own eyes—
for it was honey sweet and had known
her own mistress herself as well as a girl (knows) her mother,
nor did it used to move itself from the lap of that (woman),
But, hopping around now here now there
It used to chirp constantly to its mistress alone:
Which now goes through that shadowy journey
whence they say no one returns.
But let it be bad for you, evil shadows of Orcus
You which devour all beautiful things:
You who took so beautiful a bird from me
Oh evil deed! Oh poor little sparrow!
Now the little eyes of my girl, swollen with sobbing,
Are reddened by your deed.

Catullus 2

Sparrow, delight of my girl, with whom she is accustomed to play, which (she is accustomed) to hold in her lap, to whom, attacking, (she is accustomed) to give her finger tip and to arouse sharp bites, when it is pleasing for my shining desire to play at something dear and a little comfort of her pain, I believe, that then her heavy passion lessens: would that I were able to play with you as she herself does and soothe the sad cares of (my) mind!
…
It is as pleasing to me as they say was the golden apple to the swift girl, which untied the belt long tied.

Catullus 1

To whom do I give my new little book, charming (and) just polished with a dry pumice. To you , Cornelius, for you were accustomed to think my scribbles were something. Now then when you dared, one man, to set out whole age of the Italians in three scrolls. . .learned, by Jupiter, and laborious! Therefore have for yourself this something of a little book—which, whatever (it is), o patron maiden, may it remain more than one constant generation.

Aeneid lines 6.854-901 (class translation)

Thus father Anchises and he adds for those wondering at these things: “Look how Marcellus, marked by the rich spoils advances and as a victor towers above all men. This man will stay the Roman state from the great roiling tumult, as a knight he will lay low the Carthaginians and the Gallic rebellion, and he will hang the third captured arms for father Quirinus.” And here Aeneas (for at the same time he saw the young man going outstanding in form and gleaming arms, but his brow was too little happy and his face downcast at the eyes) “Who, father, is that man who thus accompanies the coming man? A son, or someone from the great stock of our descendants? What clamoring(s) of the crowd surround (him)! What a presence he has in himself! But a black night encircles his head with a dark cloud.” Then father Anchises began with tears welling up, “Oh son, do not ask about the great grief of our people; the fates will show such a man to the lands nor allow him to be longer. The Roman offspring was seen (to be) too powerful by you, lofty ones, if these gifts were permanent. How many groans of men will that field drive to the great city of Mars! Or, Tiber, what funerals you will see when you glide past the fresh tomb! Neither will any boy from the Ilian race lift the Latin grandfathers to such by hope (of him),nor will the land of Romulus ever boast itself so much in any nursling. Ah piety, ah previous faith and right hands unconquered in war! Not any would have carried himself [away] with impunity meeting that man armed, whether he would go as a infantryman toward the enemy or he would pierce the flanks of his foaming horse with his spurs. Alas, boy to be pitied, if in any way you break those rough fates, you will be Marcellus. Give lilies with full hands, let me sprinkle purple flowers and honor the spirit of my descendent with these gifts, and let me perform the empty offering.” Thus they wander everywhere through the whole region in the wide fields of fog and they survey everything. After which Anchises led his child through each thing and kindled his spirit with the love of coming fame, thence he details for the man what wars then must be waged, and he teaches about the people of Laurentum and the city of Latinus, and how he might both flee and bear each labor.

There are twin gates of Sleep, one of which is said to be horn, from/by which an easy departure is given to true shades, the other made gleaming with white ivory, but (through this gate) the ghosts sent false dreams to the sky. Then in that place, with these things having been said, Anchises escorts his son together with the Sybil and he sends [them] from the ivory gate. That man cuts the way toward the ships and revisits his allies. Then he bears himself toward the harbor of Caieta straight along the shore. The anchor was thrown from the prow; the ships stand on the shore.

Aeneid lines 6.724-853 (class translation)

At first the spirit within nourishes the sky and the land and the liquid fields and the shining sphere of the moon and the Titan stars, and the mind, spread through his limbs, drives the whole mass and joins itself with its huge body. From there the race of mankind and beasts and the lives of flying things and what prodigies the sea bears under the shining water. Those seeds have a fiery force and a heavenly origin, so far as the harmful bodies do not slow and the earthly joints and dying limbs weaken. From here they fear and desire, grieve and rejoice, and (the spirits) closed in shadows and dark prison do not despise the lights. But at last when even life leaves on the last day, nevertheless not every evil and not all bodily plagues do not completely leave the wretched, and it is necessary that many things long ingrained grow deeply in wonderful ways. Therefore they are tormented by their punishments and pay the sufferings of old evils: some shadowy spirits are spread out, hung toward the winds, for others the ingrained crime is washed away below the vast whirlpool or is burned up by fire. We each suffer our own ghosts; thence we are sent through spacious Elysium and we few hold the happy fields—until the long day, the circle of time having been completed, removes the set-in stain, and leaves a cleansed ethereal feeling and a fire of simple spirit. The gods calls out all these when they have turned the wheel through 1000 years, to the river Lethe in the great line of battle doubtless as the forgetful ones again revisit the lofty vaults and begin to want to be returned (in)to bodies.”

(752) Anchises had spoken, and he draws his son together with the Sybil into the middle of the assemblies and the sounding crowd, and he seizes a mound whence he was able to pick out all those opposite in a long line and to learn the faces of those coming.

“Now come, what glory thence follows the Dardanian offspring, what descendants remain from the Italian tribe, the shining spirits about to come into our name; I will set forth in words and I will teach you your fates. That youth, you see, who leans on a pure spear, by lot holds the next places of light, the first mixed with the Italian blood, he will rise to the ethereal sky, Silvius, an Alban name, your last offspring whom your wife Lavinia will lead out late for aged you in the forests as a king and a parent of kings, whence our race will rule Alba Longa. That one nearest (is) Procas, the glory of the Trojan race, both Capys and Numator and Silvius Aeneas, who will return you in name, outstanding equally in piety as arms if ever he receives Alba to be ruled. (770) What youths! Look what strength they show and (how) they pass the darkened times by the civil wreath! These (will found) Nomentum and Gabii and the city of Fidena, they will place Colentian citadels on the mountains; Pometii and Fort Inus, and Bola, and Cora. Then these will be the names; the lands now are without names. But indeed also Mavortian Romulus will add himself as companion to the grandfather, whom mother Illia will lead from Assaracus' blood. Do you see how the twin crests stand on his head and the father himself marks (him) as a god with his own honor. Behold, child, by the auspices of this one that famous Rome will equal the rule among the lands and the spirits on Olympus, and will surround seven citadels with its one wall, fortunate offspring of men: as the turreted Berecyntian mother rides on a carriage through Phrygian cities, rejoicing in the birth of the gods, having embraced a hundred grandchildren, all the gods, all those holding the heights above. To this place now turn twin eyes, see this race and your Romans. Here is Caesar and the whole race of Iulus about to come under the great pole of the sky. (791) This man, this is he whom you have often heard (would) be sent to you, Augustus Caesar, son of the god (Iulius), who will lead the golden ages again through the fields once ruled by Saturn in Latium and will extend control over the Garamantes and the Indi; the earth spreads out beyond the stars, beyond the paths of the yearly sun, where sky holding Atlas twists the axle, studded with burning stars, on his shoulder. In the coming of this one, now already both the Caspian kingdoms and the Maeotian land bristle at the responses of the gods, and the agitated mouths of the sevenfold Nile are roiled. Nor truly does Hercules pass over so much of the land, it is permitted that he pierce the bronze hoofed doe, or give peace to the woods of Erymanthus and make Lerna tremble with his bow; nor Liber the victor, who bends the yokes with his reigns of vine, driving his tigers from the lofty summit of Nisa. And do we yet hesitate to extend virtue by deeds, or does fear forbid [us] to stand upon Ausonian land? Who (is) that man, marked by branches of olive, at a distance moreover carrying sacred items? I am acquainted with the hair and the white beard of the Roman king who will found the first city with laws in little Cures and poor land, sent into great command. To whom then Tullus will submit who will break reposes of the fatherland and will move lazy men to weapons and the lines of battle already unaccustomed to triumphs. Next to whom more boastful Ancus now also follows, already rejoicing too much in popular opinion. (817) Do you want to see both the Tarquinian kings and the proud spirit of Brutus the avenger and the received fasces? This one first will take up command of the consul and savage battle axes, and the father will call his children moving new rebellions to punishment for beautiful freedom. Unlucky one! However posterity will bear these deeds: the love of the fatherland and immense desire of praises will win out. Nay even look at the Decii and the Drusi from afar and Torquatus, savage with his battle axe, and Camillus, bearing back the standards. Those harmonious spirits, moreover, whom you discern flashing in equal arms, now and while oppressed by night, alas how great a war between them, what great battle lines and strategy will they arouse if their lives touch the light; the father-in-law coming down from the Alpine ramparts and citadel of Monoecus, the son-in-law drawn up with the eastern adversaries. Do not, children, do not in your minds become accustomed to such great wars, nor turn valiant strength onto the vitals of the fatherland. And you first, you, who lead your race from Olympus, spare (us), throw down the weapons from your hand, my blood. (836) That one as a victor, marked by slaughtered Greeks, will lead his chariot to high Capitoline with Corinth conquered. That one will overthrow Argi and Agamemnon’s Mycenae and the descendants of Aeacus [Hercules] himself, the race of Achilles powerful in arms, having avenged the ancestors of Troy and the violated temples of Minerva. Great Cato, who might leave you unmentioned, or you, Cossus? Who (might leave unmentioned) the race of Gracchus or the twins Scipios, the two thunderbolts of war, the disaster of Libya, and Fabricius, powerful in little, or you, Serranus, sowing in his furrow? Where do you pull me wearied, Fabius? You are that man Maximus, one who by delaying restores the state for us. Others will forge bronze breathing more gently (I believe indeed), they will lead living faces from marble, they will argue cases better, and they will describe the motions of the sky on its compass and will name the rising constellations: you Roman, remember to rule the people with your power (these will be your arts), and impose the law of peace, spare the beaten, and beat down the prideful.

Aeneid lines 6.637-723 (class translation)

These things having been finished at last, the offering to the goddess completed, they arrived at the contented places and the pleasant meadows of the happy forests and the blessed abodes. Here a more abundant air clothed the fields with a purple light and they know their own sun, their own stars. Some exercise their limbs in grassy yards, they strive in play and wrestle in the tawny sand; others beat out the dances with their feet and sing poems. Likewise a Thracian priest with a long robe accompanies the intervals of their voices in seven measures and he beats the same now with his fingers, now with his ivory pick. Here the ancient race of Teucer, a most beautiful offspring, great hearted heroes, born in better years. Both Ilus and Assaracus and Dardanus, the founder of Troy. He wonders from afar at their weaponry and the carefree races of the men. Their spears stand, fixed in the ground, and their horses loosed about graze through the field. What pleasure of races and arms was to the living, what care (there was) to feed their shining horses, the same follows the ones buried in the earth. Behold, he sees the others eating on the left and right on the grass and singing a happy ode in a chorus amongst a fragrant forest of laurel. Whence the plentiful stream of Eridanus winds around the forest to the world above. Here is the band having suffered wounds fighting for their fatherland and who were chaste priests, while life remained, and who were dutiful prophets and spoke the worthy (words) from/of Phoebus, or who enriched life through invented arts, and who made others mindful of them by their merit. The brows of all these are enriched with snowy white headband. The Sybil spoke thus to those scattered about, to Musaeus before all (for a very great crowd holds this center and looks up at him standing taller by his lofty shoulders): “Happy spirits and you greatest priest, tell me which region, what place holds Anchises? For the sake of that man we have come and crossed the great streams of Erebus.” And the heroes returned an answer to this one with a few (words). “No one has a fixed home; we inhabit the shady groves and the couches of the river banks and meadows freshened with streams. But you, if the will in your heart bears you thus, go over this ridge and I will place you now by an easy journey.” He spoke and he bore his step first and from above he shows the glittering fields; from here they leave the highest peaks.

But father Anchises, deep with in the flourishing valley, contemplating with zeal, was surveying the enclosed spirits and those about to go to the light above, and by chance he was reviewing the whole number of his own people and his dear descendants and their fates and the fortunes of the men and their customs and deeds. And he, when he saw Aeneas holding the other (path) through the grass, eagerly stretched out both his hands and tears fell to his cheek and his voice tumbled from his mouth: "You have come at last and your piety, expected by your father, has conquered the harsh journey? It is given to look at your face, son, and to hear and to answer familiar voices? Thus indeed I was leading in my mind and I was thinking about the future, counting the ages, nor did my care deceive me. I'm aware to what lands and through what great waters you have been born! by what great dangers you have been tossed! How I feared lest the kingdoms of Lybia hurt you in anyway!" But that man (answered), "Your sorrowful image, often appearing, has forced me to cross these boarders. The fleet stands in the Tyrinian Sea. Give your right hand to join; give (it), father, and do not withdraw yourself from our embrace." Thus speaking, he wet his face with a great weeping at once. Then three times he tried to give his arms around his neck: three times in vain the embraced ghost fled his hands, equal to light winds and most like a winged dream.

Meanwhile Aeneas sees a secluded forest in a set-back valley and the sounding thickets of a forest and the stream of Lethe which flows by the calm homes. The innumerable races and peoples were flying around this place: just as when the bees in meadows settle on various flowers in the peaceful summer and are scattered around glittering lilies, the whole field rustles with a murmur. Unknowing Aeneas was suddenly terrified by/at the sight and searched for the causes: what were those rivers yonder, what men filled the river banks with such a crowd. Then his father Anchises (said): “The spirits, to whom other bodies are owed by fate, drink the forgetful waters and long oblivion at the wave of the river Lethe. Indeed to remember these for you and also to show you face to face, to count up this offspring of mine I now long desire(d) , by which the more you might exalt in discovered Italy with me.” “Oh father, is it to be thought that some lofty souls go hence to the sky and are returned again to their sluggish bodies? What (is this) so dreadful desire for the wretchedness of the light?” “I shall speak indeed and I will not hold you in suspense, child,” Anchises resumes and also he reveals each one in order.

Aeneid lines 6.535-636 (class translation)

At this change of their conversations Dawn in her rosy four horsed chariot had already crossed the middle point in her airy course; and perhaps they would have drug all the given time through such (words) but the companion Sibyl warned and curtly said, "Aeneas, night rushes on; we lead the hours in mourning. Here is the place, where the way splits itself in two parts: the right (way) which holds under the walls of great Dis, by this (is) our journey to Elysium; but the left inflicts penalties on bad men and sends them to evil Tartarus." In reply Deiphoebus, "Do not be savage, great prophetess; I will depart, I will complete the number and I will be returned to the shades. Go, our glory, go! Enjoy your better fates." He said such and turned his steps as he spoke.

Aeneas suddenly looks back and under the left cliff he sees wide walls encircled by a three ringed rampart which a rapid river surrounds with seething flames, Phlegethon of Tartarus, and twists the sounding rocks. An immense gate (is) opposite and columns of solid adamant so that no force of men, not the gods themselves have power to cleave in war; an iron tower stand to the sky, and Tisiphone sitting, girt with bloody cloak, sleeplessly protects the entrance both nights and days. From this place groans are heard and savage beatings sound out, then a creaking of iron and dragged chain. Aeneas stopped and, frightened, drank in the noise. "What aspect of evils? O maiden, speak! with what punishments are they pressed? What such a sound (comes) to my ears?" Then the priestess began to speak thus: "Famous leader of the Teucrians, it is right for no pure person to stand upon the unholy threshold; yet when Hecate put me in charge of the Avernal groves, she herself taught the punishments of the gods and led (me) through everything. Rhadamanthus of Crete holds these most dire kingdoms, and he punishes and hears their deceits and forces (them) to confess what each put off as performed atonements at the moment of death, having rejoiced in their empty trickery among those above. Immediately, Tisiphone, the avengeress, jumping up, well girdled with a whip, shakes the criminals, and stretching out grim snakes on the left, she calls the cruel band of her sisters. Then at last screeching on a dreadful sounding hinge the sacred gates are opened. Do you see what sort of guard sits in the threshold? What force guards the threshold? With fifty gaping mouths the immense hydra, too savage, has her abode within. (577) There Tartarus itself stands open straight down and stretches under the shadows twice as far as the view up to airy Olympus. Here the old race of Earth, the Titan children, hurled down by lightning roll around in the lowest depth. I saw here also the twin son of Aloeus, huge bodies, who tried to tear down the great sky with their hands and to push Jove from his lofty kingdoms. I saw also Salmoneus paying cruel penalties while he mimics the flame of Jove and the sounds of Olympus. This one, conveyed by four horses and shaking his torches, went exulting among the peoples of the Greeks and through the city of the middle of Elis, and he was demanding diving honor for himself, madman, who was feigning the clouds and the non-imitable lightning with bronze and the clash of his horny-hoofed horses. But the all powerful father hurled his weapon among the thick clouds; that one did not cast firebrands or smoky lights from pine torches, but cast him headlong with the vast whirlwind. Likewise also Tityon, nursling of all-parenting Earth, was to see, whose body is stretched over nine whole acres, and a huge vulture with curved beak, tearing his immortal liver and fruitful innards as punishment, both explores his meals and lives deep under his chest, nor is any rest given to the renewed entrails. Why should I recall the Lapiths, Ixion, and Pirithous? (602) Over which black flint now already about to slip and like to falling threatens; the golden props on the festal couches gleam, and the feasts before his mouth, prepared with regal splendor; the oldest of the Furies reclines nearby and keeps (him) from touching the tables with his hands, and she rises, lifting her face, and thunders with her mouth. Here (are those) whose brothers were hated while life remained or a parents beaten or fraud contrived for a client, or who alone gloated over gathered wealth and did not put aside a part for their own people (which crowd is the greatest), and who were killed on account of adultery and who followed treacherous arms and did not fear to deceive the right hands of their masters. Do not ask to learn what punishment or what form or fortune sunk the men. Other roll a huge rock and, stretched out on the spokes of wheels, they hang. Unlucky Theseus sits and will sit eternally, and most wretched Phlegyas warns all and proclaims with a great voice through the shades. "Forewarned, learn justice and do not scorn the gods.” (621) This man sold his fatherland for gold and set up a powerful master; he made and unmade laws for a price; this man invaded the bedroom of his daughter and forbidden marriage rights; all dared great impiety and gained what they dared. If I had 100 tongues and 100 mouths, an iron voice, I could not understood all the forms of the crimes." When long-lived priestess gave these words she said, " But now seize the way and finish the undertaken offering; let us hasten. I see the walls raised from the forges of the Cyclopes and the gates with opposing arch where the orders bid us to put down our gifts.” She had spoken and, having advanced side by side through the darkness of the paths, they took a middle point and drew near the doors. Aeneas takes the entrance and sprinkles his body with fresh water and fixes the branch on the threshold opposite.

Aeneid lines 6.477-534 (class translation)

Thence the given journey is undertaken. And now they hold the outermost places which, remote, those distinguished in war inhabit. Here Tydeus ran to that one, here Parthenopaeus, renowned in arms, and the image of pale Adrastis, here the Dardanians, crying much in the world above and having falling in war, whom that one groaned over observing them all in a long line, both Glaucus and Medon and Thersilochus, the three sons of Antenor, and Polyboetes, sacred to Ceres, and Idaus, holding still the chariot, still his weapons. The spirits thronging on the right and left stand around, nor is it enough to have seen them once: it helps continuously to delay and join step and learn the causes of their coming. But the leaders of the Greeks and the troops of Agamemnon tremble with great fear as they see the man and his weapons gleaming thought the shades; part turn their backs as once they sought their ships, part raise a cry, but only a little one: the begun noise mocks their gaping.

And here he saw Deiphobus, the son of Priam, mutilated in his entire body, cut cruelly on his face, lips and both hands, and his temples disfigured with his ears having been ripped off, and his nostrils mangled by a shameful wound. Hardly indeed did he recognize him shivering and covering his severe punishments, and he first addressed him, with his familiar tones: “Deiphobus, mighty in arms, race of the lofty blood of Teucer, who wanted to inflict such terrible punishments, to whom was such power permitted over you? Rumor on the last night bore to me that you, tried from vast slaughter, fell over a Greek heap of confused slaughter. Then I built a empty tomb on the Rhoeteum shore and with a great shout I called the shades three times. The name and weapons guard the place; I was not able to see and place you in paternal earth as I was leaving.

To which the son of Priam: “Nothing was left (undone) by you, friend; you paid everything of the funeral for Deiphobus and his shades. But my fates and the deadly wickedness of the Spartan woman sunk me in these evils; this woman left these monuments. Indeed you know how we led false joys on the last night: and it is needed to remember too much. When the deadly horse came over lofty Pergama with a leap and heavy in the womb brought an armed infantry, that woman, feigning the rites, lead the Trojan women calling “Euhan” in chorus; she herself in the middle held the huge flame and called the Greeks from the highest citadel. Then the ill-starred bedchamber held me weary from cares and heavy with sleep, and sweet, deep—and most like calm death—quiet pressed on (me) at rest. Meanwhile my remarkable wife removed all weapons from the house and withdrew my faithful sword from under my head; she called Menelaus within my home and opened the thresholds, hoping of course that this would be a great gift to her lover and that the story of her old evils could thus be blotted out. Why do I delay? They burst into the bedchamber, the son of Aeolus added with as a companion as instigator of crimes. Gods, renew such on the Greeks, if with pious mouth I beg recompense. But what reason brought you living, come now, speak in turn. Did you come on the sea driven by wanderings or by advice of the gods? Or what fortune harasses you that you approach the sad homes without the sun, confused places?”

Aeneid lines 6.450-76 (class translation)

Among whom Phoenician Dido, recent from her wound, was wandering in the great forest; as soon as the Trojan hero stood next to and recognized whom, dim through the shadows, like the moon which a man sees or thinks he sees rising up through the clouds at the months beginning, he sent down tears and spoke with sweet love: "Unlucky Dido, then a true message had come to me that you had been destroyed and followed death with iron. Alas was I the cause of your death? I swear by the stars, by the gods and if there is any faith under the deepest earth, queen, I left your shore unwillingly. But the orders of the gods compelled me, by their commands which now compel me to go through these shadows, through places rough with neglect and vast night. Nor was I able to believe that I bore you such great sadness by my leaving. Stay your step and do not withdraw yourself from my sight. Whom do you flee? This is the last time in which I might speak to you by fate.”

With such words Aeneas tried to soften her spirit burning and gazing grimly and roused tears. That woman, turned away, held her eyes to the ground nor is she moved in face by his begun speech more than if she stood hard flint or Marpesian cliff. At last she tore herself away and flew hostile into the shady wood, where Sychaeus, her former husband sympathizes with her cares and matches her love. Nor less Aeneas, shaken by her unfair downfall, follows far with tears and pities her going.

Aeneid lines 6.384-449 (class translation)

Therefore they finish the begun journey and approach a river. The sailor as he looked out from the Stygian wave at those who now thence go through a silent forest and turn their foot to the bank, thus first attacks with words and further roars: “Whoever you are, you who strive for our waters armed, speak, come now, why you come now thither, and check your step. This is the place of shadows, of sleep and slumbering night: it is unlawful to carry the living bodies on my Stygian ship. Truly I did not rejoice that I received Hercules coming on the lake nor Theseus nor Pirithous although they were born of the gods and unconquerable in strength. That man sought the guardian of Tartarus with chains in his hand and drug him trembling from the throne of the king himself; these attempted to lead the mistress of Dis from her bedchamber.”

In response to which the Amprhysian priestess briefly spoke: ”No such ambushes are here (cease to be bothered), nor do our weapons carry force; let the huge doorkeeper, barking for eternity in the cave, frighten the lifeless shadows; let pure Proserpina watch the boundary of her uncle. Trojan Aeneas, marked by piety and weaponry, descends towards his father to the lowest shadows of Erebus. If no image of such piety moves you, yet may you recognize this branch,” she displays the branch which was hiding in her clothes. Then the swollen hearts settle from anger; nor were more [spoken] than these. That man, admiring the venerable gift of the fateful maiden seen [again] after a long time, turns toward the bluish-black ship and approaches the bank. Next he drives away the other spirits, which were sitting along the long ridges, and he loosens the gangways; at once he receives huge Aeneas in his boat. The seamed boat groaned beneath the weight and, full of cracks, takes on much swamp water. At last across the stream he disembarks both the priestess and the man unharmed in the hideous mud and the gray-green sedge.

Huge Cerberus makes these halls resound with three-throated barking, lying hugely in the facing cave. To whom the prophetess, seeing his necks now bristle with snakes, throws a cake sleep-inducing with drugged fruit and honey. That one, opening his three mouths, snatches the tossed (offering) with rabid hunger and, having slumped to the ground, relaxes his great necks and stretches out through the entire cave. Aeneas seizes the entrance with the guard sleeping and swiftly escapes the shore of the uncrossable wave.

Immediately voices and a huge wailing and crying spirits of infants were heard in the very threshold whom a gloomy day stole and immersed in bitter death without a share of sweet life and snatched from the teat. Next to these are those damned to death by false crime. Nor indeed are these given abodes without lot, without judgment; the judge Minos moves the urn; that one both calls the assembly of the silent ones and learns their lives and crimes. Then the sad ones held next places, who innocent caused their own death by their own hand and, having hated the light, threw away their lives. How they wish now in the high upper-air to endure both poverty and hard labors. Divine will stands in the way and the hateful swamp of sad wave binds and Styx, poured round nine times, restrains (them). Not far from here the lamenting fields stretched into every area are pointed out; thus they call those. Here the secret paths hide and a myrtle forest conceals round those whom hard love consumes with cruel pining; their cares do not leave in death itself. In these places he sees Phaedra and Procris and wretched Eryphle showing the wounds of her cruel son, and Euadne and Pasiphae; Laodenea comes as companion to these, and Caeneus, formerly a youth, now a woman, returned back into her old form by fate.

Aeneid lines 6.337-383 (class translation)

Behold the pilot Palinurus was leading himself, who recently during the Lybian journey, while he was observing the stars, having slipped from the ship fell amidst the waves. When he just recognized this sad person in the great shadow, thus Aeneas spoke first, "Which of the gods stole you from us, Palinurus, and immersed you under the middle of the sea? Speak, come. Indeed hardly before found deceptive, Apollo in this one response has mocked my mind, who sang that you should be safe from the sea and come to Ausonian territory. Look, is this promised pledge?”

But that man, "The cauldron of Phoebus did not deceive you leader, son of Anchises, nor did a god drown me. Indeed falling headlong I drug with me the rudder ripped off by chance with much force, to which as given custodian I used to cling and rule the routes. I swear by the rough seas I seized no great(er) fear for myself than that your ship, despoiled of its gear and shaken of its master, might sink in such great surging waves. Three wintry nights the violent North wind drove me on the water through vast seas; on the forth day I scarcely caught sight of Italy, born aloft from the crest of the wave. Little by little I was making for land; already I was holding safe places, except that a cruel clan, foolishly had thought (me) booty and with a sword attacked (me) weighed down with my soaking cloak and grasping the rough tops of the mountain. Now the wave holds me and the winds tosses me on shore. Wherefore, I beg you through the pleasant light and breezes of the sky, through your father, through the hopes of your growing Iulus, snatch me from (my) evils, unconquered one: either throw dirt on me, indeed you can, and revisit the ports of Velia, or you, if there is any way, if your divine mother offers any (way) to you—for, I believe, you do not prepare to cross such rivers and the Stygian marsh without the power of the gods—give your right hand to a wretched man and lift me with you through the waves so that I might rest in death in placid abodes.”

He has spoken such things when the prophetess began (to speak) so: “Whence do you have this so dread desire, Palinurus? Will you, unburied, see the Stygian waters and the stream of the harsh Eumenides, and will you, unbidden, approach the bank? Cease to hope that the fates of the gods are turned by praying. But, mindful, take (these) words, solace of your awful downfall. For the neighbors, driven far and wide through the cities by divine portents, will expiate your bones, and place a tomb, and send sacrifices to (your) tomb, and the place will have the eternal name of Palinurus.” His cares were removed by these words and the grief of his heart pushed back for a little while; he rejoices in his namesake land.

Aeneid lines 6.282-336 (class translation)

In the middle an ancient elm extended its branches and dark limbs, huge, which the empty Dreams they say hold everywhere as a seat, and cling below all the leaves. And furthermore, many signs of various beasts, the Centaurs stable in the gates and the two-shaped Scyllae and hundred-armed Briareus and also the wild beast of Lerna horribly screeching, and the Chimaera armed with flames, the Gorgons and Harpies and the beauty of the three-bodied shadow. Here agitated by the sudden terror Aeneas snatches his sword and presents the drawn blade to those coming, and unless his learned companion (had) warned that the slight beings without body fly under the empty likeness of form, he would have rushed on and in vain to scatter the shadows with his sword.

From here (is) the road of Tartarus which leads to the waves to Acheron. Here the gulf thick with mud and vast whirling (water) seethes and vomits all its sand to Cocytus. The dreadful ferryman, Charon, terribly filthy protects these waters and streams, on whose chin lies much unkempt grey hair, his eyes are aflame, a dirty cloak hangs from his shoulders in a knot. He himself forces the raft with a pole and tends the sails and carries the bodies in his rusty boat, already old, but the raw and green old age of a god. To this point, to the bank the whole scattered crowd rushed, mothers and men and bodies devoid of life of great-hearted heroes, boys and unwed girls, and youths placed upon pyres before the faces of their parents, as many falling leaves drop in the woods in the first cold of autumn, or as many birds gather on the land from the high whirlwind, when the cold season chases and sends (them) across the sea upon the sunny lands. The first stood begging to cross the stream and were extending their hands in their desire for the farther bank, but the sad ferryman accepts now these, now those but keeps off others moved far along the sand. Aeneas indeed wondered at and moved by the uproar says, “Tell me, maiden, what does the gathering at the river want? What do the souls seek? Or by what distinction do these leave the banks, those scour the dark fords with oars?” Thus briefly aged prophetess spoke to that one: “Son of Anchises, most undoubtedly offspring of the gods, you see the deep marshes of Cocytus and Stygian swamp, the power of which the gods fear to swear and prove false to. This is the whole helpless and unburied crowd which you see; that the ferryman Charon; these whom the wave carries are buried. It is not given to the dreadful banks and roaring stream to carry (them) before he bones have rested in their tomb. They wander a hundred years and fly around these shores; then at last allowed they see the hoped-for lakes.” The son of Anchises stood and held his step thinking many things and pitied their unequal lot in his mind. He discerns there those sad and lacking the honor of death, Leucaspis and Orontes, leader of the Lycian fleet, whom Auster overwhelmed, as they were carried from Troy through the windy waters, engulfing both ship and men with water.

Aeneid lines 6.236-81 (class translation)

These things having been done, (Aeneas) quickly performs the commands of the Sibyl. There was a cave, lofty and huge with a vast entrance, stony, protected by a black lake and the shadows of the woods, over which hardly any birds were able to hold their winged course safely: pouring out from the black throats, such exhalation bore itself to the vaulted heavens, whence the Greeks call the place by the name Avernus. Here first the priest stood four bullocks black in hide and pours wine on the forehead, and cutting the top hairs from between the horns he puts (them) in the sacred fires, first sacrifices, calling with his voice Hecate, powerful both in heaven and Erebus. Others put knives under (the throat) and catch the warm blood in bowls. Aeneas himself strikes with a sword a lamb with black fleece for the mother of the Eumenides and her great sister, and a sterile cow for you, Proserpina. Then he begins the nocturnal rites for the Stygian king and places the solid flesh of bulls in the fires, pouring rich oil over the burning entrails. But behold under the light of the first sun and its rising the ground began to bellow under their feet and the ridges of the forests began to move, and dogs were seen howling through the shade at the approach of the goddess. “Be away, far away, uninitiated ones, depart from the whole grove; and you enter on the path and take your sword from its sheath: now there is need for courage, now for a firm heart.” Having spoken so much she madly plunges herself into the open cave; that man hardly timidly matches his advancing guide in her steps.

Gods, who have power of the spirits, and the silent shades and Chaos and Phlegethon, the places widely quite at night, be it right for me to speak things heard, be it in your power to reveal things sunk in deep earth and fog.

The dim ones were going beneath the lonely night through the shade and through the empty homes of Dis and deserted kingdoms: there is a path of such a kind through the uncertain moon below the wicked light in the forests, where Jupiter hid the sky in a shadow, and the black night carried away the color from things. Grief and avenging Care placed their seats before the entrance itself in the first jaws of Orcus, and pale Diseases and sad Old Age inhabit, both Fear and ill-counseling Hunger and also ugly Need, terrible forms to see, both Death and Labor; then kindred Sleep of Death and evil Delight of the mind, and deadly war in the facing door, and the iron bedchambers of the Eumenides and mad Disagreement tied (in respect to) her snaky hair with bloody ribbons.