Catullus Lector

I love Catullus. I love that earthiness and the raw side he's willing to show. There’s no classical nuances here. Jealousy is jealousy and revenge is revenge. Emotions are not hid and language isn't either. I read a review on a new Catullus translation by Josephine Balmer in the Times Literary Supplement and searched to find some of her translations online. I couldn’t find anything but needing a fix by then, I looked for some by Charles Martin, my preferred taste at the moment. Here’s his translation of No. 11. This is not for the queasy so caveat lector.

No. 11

Gaius Valerius Catullus 

Translated by Charles Martin 

Aurelius & Furius, true comrades, 

whether Catullus penetrates to where in 

outermost India booms the eastern ocean's 

    wonderful thunder;

whether he stops with Arabs or Hyrcani, 

Parthian bowmen or nomadic Sagae; 

or goes to Egypt, which the Nile so richly 

    dyes, overflowing;

even if he should scale the lofty Alps, or 

summon to mind the mightiness of Caesar 

viewing the Gallic Rhine, the dreadful Britons 

    at the world's far end-- 

you're both prepared to share in my adventures, 

and any others which the gods may send me.

Back to my girl then, carry her this bitter 

    message, these spare words:

May she have joy & profit from her cocksmen, 

go down embracing hundreds all together, 

never with love, but without interruption 

    wringing their balls dry;

nor look to my affection as she used to, 

for she has left it broken, like a flower 

at the edge of a field after the plowshare 

    brushes it, passing.

There's so much here that would have been wasted if not for that last stanza. But he knew that.

Afterword (3 hrs later): I just want to remind myself that the connection here between empire and love is so overwhelmingly spot on that maybe it should be on the Secretary of Defense's reading list. That is, if W (i.e, Laura) would let him read it (just a joke Rummy good buddy.) But beyond the early double entendres and the later shock and awe, that last stanza that leaves the soldier of fortune broken is a warning for all empire builders, classical or postmodern.