Translation
By Gaius Valerius Catullus (Author), Joseph Bienvenu (Translator), Illustrations by, Thaddeus Conti.
16
I’m going to fuck you and then suck you off Aurelius, you queen, and Furius, you whore. You think, because my little poems are flamboyant, I must be a little flaming too. It’s true, a real poet ought to try to be austere, but his poems don’t need to be, and poetry, if it has any technique and spark to it, whether it is glitzy or not, will excite the itch not of boys, but hairy men who can’t even budge their calloused limbs. You say, because of “my myriads of kisses,” you think I’m not a man?
I’m going to beat you up and then I’ll suck you off.
76
If there’s any satisfaction a man can have from remembering the good deeds he’s done, in knowing that he was kind, that he kept his word, that he never ignored promises he made to the gods, that he never sweet-talked anyone into doing anything wrong, then, Catullus, there must be millenniums of happiness coming to you in payment for all your unrewarded kindness. Because everything that a man could do or say for anyone, you did and said for her, but you got no thanks from her, and all your kindness was wasted. Why should you beat yourself up any more about it? Why don’t you toughen up and forget this whole miserable business that even the gods find distasteful? It’s hard to all of a sudden give up on a love you’ve had for a long time. It’s hard, but you have to do it anyway. This is your only chance to escape, your only shot at victory. You have to do it, whether you’ve got it in you or not. O gods, if you have any pity at all, if you’ve ever held out a last shred of hope to a man on death’s door, look down on me in my misery, and if I’ve lived a good enough life, cure me of this fatal disease which spreads its stiffness through my arms and legs and chases all contentment from my chest. I’m not praying for her to love me anymore or for her to be faithful (not that she could). I just want to be healthy, to get rid of this hideous infection. O gods, answer this one prayer for me, a humble man.
http://www.lavenderink.org/content/catalog/215 http://www.amazon.com/The-Poems-Gaius-Valerius-Catullus/dp/1935084178
Two reviews from Amazon. "It comes as no surprise to me, though surely a delight to savor, that it has taken a New Orleans poet to truly lock eyebrows with the most passionate and genuine Latin poet of antiquity."
—Stanley Lombardo, Professor of Classics, University of Kansas
"He gets the filthy parts just right…"
—Peter Thompson, author of Angle of Incidence / Shades"