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.