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Translation:Catullus 15

From Wikisource
Catullus 15
by Catullus, translated from Latin by Wikisource

Hendecasyllabic.

3802384Catullus 15WikisourceCatullus
Literal English Translation Original Latin Line

I entrust my loved ones and myself to you, Aurelius.
And I humbly ask a favor from you,
that if you have ever valued anything,
which you might have wished to keep pure and true,
then modestly guard my boy for me,
not I say from the populace, I don't fear
them who just pass by here and there on the street
occupied with their own affairs.
In truth, I am afraid of you and your penis,
hostile to boys, both good and bad.
Because you let it go where it pleases, as it pleases,
as much as you wish. When it is out, you are ready.
This one boy I ask humbly, I feel, you exclude.
For if foul thought and senseless passion drives
you, wretch, to such a crime
that you plan in your mind treason against me,
Then you will have a miserable and ill fate.
Because with feet tied together you will be run
through your backdoor with radishes and mullets.

Commendo tibi me ac meos amores,
Aureli. veniam peto pudentem,
ut, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti,
quod castum expeteres et integellum,
conserves puerum mihi pudice,
non dico a populo—nihil veremur
istos, qui in platea modo huc modo illuc
in re praetereunt sua occupati—
verum a te metuo tuoque pene
infesto pueris bonis malisque.
quem tu qua lubet, ut lubet moveto
quantum vis, ubi erit foris paratum:
hunc unum excipio, ut puto, pudenter.
quod si te mala mens furorque vecors
in tantam impulerit, sceleste, culpam,
ut nostrum insidiis caput lacessas.
a tum te miserum malique fati!
quem attractis pedibus patente porta
percurrent raphanique mugilesque.

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