Catullus 6: She’s No Dainty Fawn
She’s no dainty fawn found grazing at woodland’s
Edge, Flavius. She’s a thing more toothsome and
Whoresome! Snatched off the streets is your
New darling, am I right?
Sure I am, or like an ass
You’d be braying to me about her.
Confess it or not, it hardly matters,
For your bed BLARES the news:
What, with soiled sheets and caved-in pillows,
The rank smell of cheap olives and 10-cent
Garlands, the bedcovers heaped on the floor,
The creaking bedposts about to collapse
And you sagging at the knees about to keel over,
Why hide it?
Come, confess in Catullus’ ear every detail
Seemly and sordid, and with verse defter
Than Callimachus’ I’ll win you heaven’s blessing
Catullus 69: You Shouldn’t Be Surprised
You shouldn’t be surprised, Rufus, that no girl
Wants to lay her pretty thigh under yours,
That not even your enticements of silk dresses
And dazzling jewels can seduce a single one.
What’s keeping them away? A fatal rumor
That a wild goat capers in the barnyards
*************of your armpits!
He scares off the poor dears–and no wonder, for
He’s a rank, mangy beast. Who can blame a pretty maid
For retching at the thought of bedding with him?
Choose! Either kill the beast that fouls the nose
Or quit being surprised when the girls turn tail.
Catullus 36: Poems of Volusius
Poems of Volusius, shit writ on toilet paper,
Redeem yourself by helping fulfill the vow
My lady swore to Venus and Cupid:
That if I returned to her bed and ceased
Spearing her with my hurled iambics,
For offering, she would select the choicest
Bad poems of the very worst poet and give them
To crippled Vulcan for his bonfires. And my lady,
As she has wit and taste, picks you.
O Venus, born in spume of the bright blue
Sea . . . mark discharged my lady’s vow,
Which neither rude nor crude but charming is.
As for you, brainless bumpkin’s verse,
*************to the flames come,
Poems of Volusius, shit writ on toilet paper!
Catullus 33: O Best of Thieves
O best of thieves at the Roman baths,
Old Vibennius and catamite son,
(Father with scabby hand filching coins,
Son with flabby ass devouring cocks):
I think it’s time you hiked up your skirts
And beat it to the farthest border,
For your pickpocketing, old man,
Is blabbed all over town; and really, kid,
Is getting your hairy ass pounded worth
The pennies you’re paid?