Gaius Valerius Catullus, Carmina (ed. Sir Richard Francis Burton)
Editions and translations: Latin (ed. E. T. Merrill) | English (ed. Sir Richard Francis Burton) | English (ed. Leonard C. Smithers)
Your current position in the text is marked in red. Click anywhere on the line to jump to another position.
TO HORTALUS LAMENTING A LOST BROTHER.Albeit care that consumes, with dule assiduous grieving,
Me from the Learnèd Maids (Hortalus!) ever seclude,
Nor can avail sweet births of the Muses thou to deliver
Thought o' my mind; (so much floats it on flooding of ills:
For that the Lethe-wave upsurging of late from abysses,
Lavèd my brother's foot, paling with pallor of death,
He whom the Trojan soil, Rhoetean shore underlying,
Buries for ever and aye, forcibly snatched from our sight.
...
I can address; no more shall I hear thee tell of thy doings,
Say, shall I never again, brother all liefer than life,
Sight thee henceforth? But I will surely love thee for ever
Ever what songs I sing saddened shall be by thy death;
Such as the Daulian bird 'neath gloom of shadowy frondage
Warbles, of Itys lost ever bemoaning the lot.)
Yet amid grief so great to thee, my Hortalus, send I
These strains sung to a mode borrowed from Battiades;
Lest shouldest weet of me thy words, to wandering wind-gusts
Vainly committed, perchance forth of my memory flowed--
As did that apple sent for a furtive giftie by wooer,
In the chaste breast of the Maid hidden a-sudden out-sprang;
For did the hapless forget when in loose-girt garment it lurkèd,
Forth would it leap as she rose, scared by her mother's approach,
And while coursing headlong, it rolls far out of her keeping,
O'er the triste virgin's brow flushes the conscious blush.
There are a total of 51 comments on and cross references to this page.
Further comments from E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus:
poem 65 (general note)
poem 65, line 1: defectum
poem 65, line 10: te
poem 65, line 10: vita amabilior
poem 65, line 14: Daulias
poem 65, line 15: sed tamen
poem 65, line 16: haec
poem 65, line 16: expressa
poem 65, line 16: Battiadae
poem 65, line 17: credita ventis
poem 65, line 19: ut
poem 65, line 19: missum munere
poem 65, line 19: sponsi
poem 65, line 19: malum
poem 65, line 2: doctis virginibus
poem 65, line 2: Ortale
poem 65, line 20: procurrit
poem 65, line 20: casto
poem 65, line 20: gremio
poem 65, line 21: miserae oblitae
poem 65, line 21: molli
poem 65, line 22: prosilit
poem 65, line 23 (general note)
poem 65, line 24: huic
poem 65, line 3: Musarum fetus
poem 65, line 4: mens animi
poem 65, line 4: fluctuat malis
poem 65, line 5: Lethaco gurgite
poem 65, line 6: pallidulum
poem 65, line 6: adluit unda pedem
poem 65, line 7: subter
Cross references from E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus:
* [Family and circumstances.]
* [Lesbia.]
* [Poems.]
* [Metres.]
*
*
*
*
* [Lesbia.]
*
*
*
* [Friends and foes.]
*: missum furtivo munere
*
*
*: miserae oblitae
*: molli sub veste
*
*
Preferred URL for linking to this page: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Catul.+65.1
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This text is based on the following book(s): Catullus. Carmina. Sir Richard Francis Burton. trans. London. For translator for private use. 1894. OCLC: 878062
|