Furius and Aurelius, Catullus' friends,
Whether extremest Indian shore he brave,
Strands where far-resounding billow rends
The shattered wave,
Or 'mid Hyrcanians dwell he, Arabs soft and wild, 5
Sacæ and Parthians of the arrow fain,
Or where the Seven-mouth'd Nilus mud-defiled
Tinges the Main,
Or climb he lofty Alpine Crest and note
Works monumental, Cæsar's grandeur telling, 10
Rhine Gallic, horrid Ocean and remote
Britons low-dwelling;
All these (whatever shall the will design
Of Heaven-homed Gods) Oh ye prepared to tempt;
Announce your briefest to that damsel mine 15
In words unkempt:--
Live she and love she wenchers several,
Embrace three hundred wi' the like requitals,
None truly loving and withal of all
Bursting the vitals: 20
My love regard she not, my love of yore,
Which fell through fault of her, as falls the fair
Last meadow-floret whenas passed it o'er
Touch of the share.
Furius and Aurelius, comrades of Catullus, whether he penetrate to furthest
Ind where the strand is lashed by the far-echoing Eoan surge, or whether
'midst the Hyrcans or soft Arabs, or whether the Sacians or quiver-bearing
Parthians, or where the seven-mouthed Nile encolours the sea, or whether he
traverse the lofty Alps, gazing at the monuments of mighty Caesar, the
gallic Rhine, the dismal and remotest Britons, all these, whatever the
Heavens' Will may bear, prepared at once to attempt,--bear ye to my girl
this brief message of no fair speech. May she live and flourish with her
swivers, of whom may she hold at once embraced the full three hundred,
loving not one in real truth, but bursting again and again the flanks of
all: nor may she look upon my love as before, she whose own guile slew it,
e'en as a flower on the greensward's verge, after the touch of the passing
plough.