Catullus Poems - Poems about Catullus

CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS 4 Catullus LXV aka Carmina 65 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hortalus, I’m exhausted by relentless grief, and have thus abandoned the learned virgins; nor can my mind, so consumed by malaise, partake of the Muses' mete fruit; for lately the Lethaean flood laves my brother's death-pale foot with its dark waves, where, beyond mortal sight, ghostly Ilium disgorges souls beneath...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS 3 Catullus VII: 'How Many Kisses' loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You ask, Lesbia, how many kisses are enough, or more than enough, to satisfy me? As many as the Libyan sands swirling in incense-bearing Cyrene between the torrid oracle of Jove and the sacred tomb of Battiades. Or as many as the stars observing amorous men making love furtively on a...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS 2 Catullus CI: 'His Brother's Burial' translation by Michael R. Burch 1. Through many lands and over many seas I have journeyed, brother, to these wretched rites, to this final acclamation of the dead... and to speak — however ineffectually — to your voiceless ashes now that Fate has wrested you away from me. Alas, my dear brother, wrenched from my arms...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS Catullus LXXXV: 'Odi et Amo' loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 1. I hate. I love. You ask, 'Why not refrain?' I wish I could explain. I can't, but feel the pain. 2. I hate. I love. Why? Heavens above! I wish I could explain. I can't, but feel the pain. 3. I hate. I love. How can that be, turtledove? I wish I could explain. I can't, but feel...

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I’m not some filthy **** who calls your poems a joke; I like them. But here’s advice, take it or ignore it: You lard a poem with myths that weigh it down; half the young no longer know them. In the next poem you introduce a talking door. Do doors talk in Verona? You use...

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That night you came and dined with us there was a wind, then soft rain. My hair was dressed by Aemilia who does it to perfection, and I wore no jewelry except the brooch my husband gave...

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So, you think my poems obscene? Read Catullus. Graffiti-ed lavatories are more apt sites for his scatological puerile poem writes. Yet, today his leather bound tomes enthrall us. Vicariously momentarily shot back over two thousand years I get to watch as he skewers harlots, fools and others such; poetically, of course; who strut what they ought not. Lesbia and...

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Kiss me but once, Sweet, And I'll be rapt away; Or kiss me a second time, Oh! away all day! Kiss me but thrice, Sweet, And I am gone for good; Or kiss me forever, Oh, Love, yes you should!...

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