CATULLUS 5

Thanks for all the positive feedback and interest in Latin poetry which many people will not have heard recited before -  especially in my Pig-Latin!   Catullus`s exquisite entreaty to his beloved Lesbia is as vibrant now as when he wrote it in the late-Republican era.   Catullus (84-54 BC)  was besotted by his `Lesbia` commonly believed to be Clodia Metelli.   She is the subject of several other poems by him.   Several of you commented on the alliterative quality of the poem,  the stresses and the rhythm and I only hope I did it justice.   Below is the original followed by a translation by A. S. Kline.   His entreaty to love and forget what others say and to make the most of life and to live for the now is the precursor of the concept of carpe diem often misquoted as `seize the day' when the more accurate translation or concept is that of `harvest the day'.   Remember the Vs are pronounced as Ws as in 'way'.   

CATULLUS 5
Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let’s Live and Love: to Lesbia

Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love,
and all the words of the old, and so moral,
may they be worth less than nothing to us!
Suns may set, and suns may rise again:
but when our brief light has set,
night is one long everlasting sleep.
Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred more,
another thousand, and another hundred,
and, when we’ve counted up the many thousands,
confuse them so as not to know them all,
so that no enemy may cast an evil eye,
by knowing that there were so many kisses.