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.