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.”