Rufe mihi frustra ac
nequiquam
credite amico
(Frustra?
(Frustra?
Catullus - Carmina
Cease thou to wish to merit well from anyone in aught, or to think any can
become honourable. All are ingrate, naught benign doth avail to aught, but
rather it doth irk and prove the greater ill: so with me, whom none doth
o'erpress more heavily nor more bitterly than he who a little while ago
held me his one and only friend.
LXXIIII.
Gellius audierat patruom obiurgare solere,
Siquis delicias diceret aut faceret.
Hoc ne ipsi accideret, patrui perdepsuit ipsam
Vxorem et patruom reddidit Harpocratem.
Quod voluit fecit: nam, quamvis inrumet ipsum 5
Nunc patruom, verbum non faciet patruos.
LXXIIII.
OF GELLIUS.
Wont was Gellius hear his uncle rich in reproaches,
When any ventured aught wanton in word or in deed.
Lest to him chance such befall, his uncle's consort seduced he,
And of his uncle himself fashioned an Harpocrates.
Whatso he willed did he; and nowdays albe his uncle 5
---- he, no word ever that uncle shall speak.
Gellius had heard that his uncle was wont to be wroth, if any spake of or
practised love-sportings. That this should not happen to him, he kneaded up
his uncle's wife herself, and made of his uncle a god of silence. Whatever
he wished, he did; for now, even if he irrumate his uncle's self, not a
word will that uncle murmur.
LXXVII.
Rufe mihi frustra ac nequiquam credite amico
(Frustra? immo magno cum pretio atque malo),
Sicine subrepsti mei, atque intestina perurens
Ei misero eripuisti omnia nostra bona?
Eripuisti, heu heu nostrae crudele venenum 5
Vitae, heu heu nostrae pestis amicitiae.
Sed nunc id doleo, quod purae pura puellae
Savia conminxit spurca saliva tua.
Verum id non inpune feres: nam te omnia saecla
Noscent, et qui sis fama loquetur anus. 10
LXXVII.
TO RUFUS, THE TRAITOR FRIEND.
Rufus, trusted as friend by me, so fruitlessly, vainly,
(Vainly? nay to my bane and at a ruinous price! )
Hast thou cajoled me thus, and enfiring innermost vitals,
Ravished the whole of our good own'd by wretchedest me?
Ravished; (alas and alas! ) of our life thou cruellest cruel 5
Venom, (alas and alas! ) plague of our friendship and pest.
Yet must I now lament that lips so pure of the purest
Damsel, thy slaver foul soiled with filthiest kiss.
But ne'er hope to escape scot free; for thee shall all ages
Know, and what thing thou be, Fame, the old crone, shall declare. 10
O Rufus, credited by me as a friend, wrongly and for naught, (wrongly?
