#catullus 48

[lepistemologie]

[betokeneth]

At the all-you-can-kiss buffet

Catullus 48, translated by Bernadette Mayer (1990) / translated by Peter Whigham (1966) / translated by Simon Smith (2013) / translated by Frank O. Copley (1957)

[helloimmrburns]

Oh, Juventius, if it is me whose reflection shimmers within your magnificent eyes, know the thousands of kisses that will be placed, though neither of us will see the other's future.

Catullus 48

Actually, this is not Catullus 48, but it's what one of my students put on his test, and it was too pretty not to share.

[skifazoa]

Steeped in honey, Juventius,

your golden eyes, and as sweet too

when I press my lips to them -

three hundred thousand kisses

is not close to enough. Even if I plucked

each kiss like an amber grain

from a ripe, sun-warmed field

in late summer - sheaves

and sheaves of them - my love,

it would not be enough.

Catullus, 48 (A Field of Kisses)

[doctor-mirabilis]

Juventius, if I could play at kissing your honeyed eyes as often as I wished to, 300,000 games would not exhaust me; never could I be satisfied or sated, although the total of our osculations were greater than the ears of grain at harvest.

Catullus 48

[argonauticae]

were i allowed to kiss your honeyed eyes, juventus, on and on, three hundred thousand times would not seem enough for me, not if the harvest of our kissing should outnumber the ripe ears of corn.

catullus - 48