LYDIA.

Me torret face mutuâ
Thurini Calais filius Ornyti;

Pro quo bis patiar mori
Si parcent puero fata superstiti.

HORACE. Quid si prisca redit Venus,

Diductosque jugo cogit aheneo;

Si flava excutitur Chloe,
Rejectæque patet janua Lydiæ ?

LYDIA.

Quanquam sidere pulchrior
Ille est; tu levior cortice, et improbo

Iracundior Adria;
Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.

S

Lydia. The son of Ornytus inspires

My burning breast with mutual fires;
I'll face two several deaths with joy,
So Fate but spare my Thurian boy.

Hor.

What, if our ancient love awoke,
And bound us with its golden yoke ;
If auburn Chloe I resign,
And Lydia once again be mine?

Lydia. Though brighter than a star is he,

Thou, rougher than the Adrian sea,
And fickle as light bark; yet I
With thee would live, with thee would die.

1858. Catullus to Lesbia.

CARM. LI.

ILLE mî par esse deo videtur,
Ille, si fas est, superare divos,
Qui sedens adversus identidem te

Spectat et audit

Dulce ridentem. Misero quod omnes Eripit sensus mihi; nam simul te, Lesbia aspexi, nihil est super mî.

Him rival to the gods I place,

Him loftier yet, if loftier be,
Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face,

Who listens and who looks on thee;

Thee smiling soft. Yet this delight

Doth all my sense consign to death ;
For when thou dawnest on my sight,

Ah wretched ! flits my labouring breath.*

gap, in

* By borrowing from the beautiful Ode of Sappho, which is the prototype if not the original of Catullus, I have filled

up

the the sense as well as in the metre, which the Latin presents to us. The first stanza of the Greek closes thus

βροχεως με φωνάς ουδεν έτ' έκει»

Lingua sed torpet: tenuis sub artus
Flamma dimanat: sonitu suopte
Tintinant aures; geminâ teguntur

Lumina nocte.

Otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est;
Otio exultas, nimiumque gestis :
Otium et reges prius, et beatas

Perdidit urbes.