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Translation:Catullus 116

From Wikisource
Catullus 116
by Catullus, translated from Latin by Wikisource

Elegiac couplets.

63330Catullus 116WikisourceCatullus
Literal English Translation Original Latin Line

Often searching for you with a studious, hunting mind
  so that I could send the poems of Callimachus
whereby I should appease you, nor you try
  to send hostile spears right into my head;
I now see that this labor undertaken by me is in vain,
  O Gellius, nor that my prayers have prevailed in this.
I'll escape those your hostile spears driven against us,
  but you, pierced, will give me compensation.

Saepe tibī studiōsō animō vēnante requīrēns
  carmina utī possem mittere Battiadae,
quī tē lēnīrem nōbīs, neu cōnārēre
  tēla īnfesta meum mittere in ūsque caput,
hunc videō mihi nunc frūstrā sūmptum esse labōrem,
  Gellī, nec nostrās hīc valuisse precēs.
Contrā nōs tēla ista tua ēvītābimus ācta:
  at fīxus nostrīs tū dabĭs supplicium.

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