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Translation:Catullus 73

From Wikisource
Catullus 73
by Catullus, translated from Latin by Wikisource

"A bitter epigram about personal betrayal, a theme to which the poet returns in poem 77 (cf. also poem 30). In this poem the ungrateful friend is unnamed." (Garrison, 2004). Elegiac couplets.

1320084Catullus 73WikisourceCatullus


Literal English Translation Original Latin Line

Cease to want to earn well in any respect from anyone
or to think that anyone is able to become grateful.
All things are ungrateful, to have acted kindly is not
beneficial at all, on the contrary it tires and it hurts more,
As it is to me, whom no one distresses more seriously nor more painfully,
Than he who holds me as his one and only friend.

Dēsine dē quōquam quicquam bene velle merērī
aut aliquem fierī posse putāre pium.
Omnia sunt ingrāta, nihil fēcisse benignē
prōdest, immō etiam taedet obestque magis;
ut mihi, quem nēmō gravius nec acerbius urget,
quam modo quī me ūnum atque ūnicum amīcum habuit.

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