Sad Catullus, cease your moan,
Or your folly you'll deplore;
What you see no more your own,
Think of as your own no more.
Once the suns shone on you clearly,
When it was your wont to go
Seeking her you loved so dearly,--
Will you e'er love woman so?
Then those coquetries amusing
Were consented to by both--
Done at least of your free choosing,
Nor was she so very loth.
Then, indeed, the suns shone clearly,
Now their light is half gone out;
She is loth--and you can merely
Learn the way to do without.
Cease, then, your untimely wooing,
Steel your purpose, and be strong;
If she flies you, why, pursuing,
Make your sorrow vain and long?
Farewell, Fair!--Catullus hardens;
Where he is, will he remain;
He is not a man who pardons
One that must be asked again.
She'll be sad in turn, the charmer,
When the shades of eventide
Bring no gallants to alarm her,
No Catullus to her side.
Lost to every sense of duty,
Say, what can you, will you do?
Who'll find out that you have beauty?
Who'll be loved in turn by you?
Whose will you be called of right?
Whom will you in future kiss?
Whose lips will you have to bite?--
O Catullus, keep to this!
GRATIAN.--Well, now, I think your choice of metre a little too much of
the measured elegiac, for the bursts of alternate passion, love, and
anger--those sudden breaks of vexation, which I see, or fancy I see, in
the original Latin. Now, Aquilius, let us hear you personate the "vexed
lover."