for aye good lasses are lauded as loyal:
Price of themselves they accept when they intend to perform.
Price of themselves they accept when they intend to perform.
Catullus - Carmina
CVIIII.
TO LESBIA ON HER VOW OF CONSTANCY.
Gladsome to me, O my life, this love whose offer thou deignest
Between us twain lively and lusty to last soothfast.
(Great Gods! ) grant ye the boon that prove her promises loyal,
Saying her say in truth spoken with spirit sincere;
So be it lawful for us to protract through length of our life-tide 5
Mutual pact of our love, pledges of holy good will!
My joy, my life, thou declarest to me that this love of ours shall last
ever between us. Great Gods! grant that she may promise truly, and say this
in sincerity and from her soul, and that through all our lives we may be
allowed to prolong together this bond of holy friendship.
CX.
Aufilena, bonae semper laudantur amicae:
Accipiunt pretium, quae facere instituunt.
Tu quod promisti, mihi quod mentita inimica's,
Quod nec das et fers saepe, facis facinus.
Aut facere ingenuaest, aut non promisse pudicae, 5
Aufilena, fuit: sed data corripere
Fraudando + efficit plus quom meretricis avarae,
Quae sese tota corpore prostituit.
CX.
TO AUFILENA.
Aufilena!
for aye good lasses are lauded as loyal:
Price of themselves they accept when they intend to perform.
All thou promised'st me in belying proves thee unfriendly,
For never giving and oft taking is deed illy done.
Either as honest to grant, or modest as never to promise, 5
Aufilena! were fair, but at the gifties to clutch
Fraudfully, viler seems than greed of greediest harlot
Who with her every limb maketh a whore of herself.
Aufilena, honest harlots are always praised: they accept the price of what
they intend to do. Thou didst promise that to me, which, being a feigned
promise, proves thee unfriendly; not giving that, and often accepting, thou
dost wrongfully. Either to do it frankly, or not to promise from modesty,
Aufilena, was becoming thee: but to snatch the gift and bilk, proves thee
worse than the greedy strumpet who prostitutes herself with every part of
her body.
CXI.
Aufilena, viro contentam vivere solo,
Nuptarum laus e laudibus eximiis:
Sed cuivis quamvis potius succumbere par est,
Quam matrem fratres _efficere_ ex patruo.
CXI.
TO THE SAME.
Aufilena! to live content with only one husband,
Praise is and truest of praise ever bestowed upon wife.
Yet were it liefer to lie any wise with any for lover,
Than to be breeder of boys uncle as cousins begat.
Aufilena, to be content to live with single mate, in married dame is praise
of praises most excelling: but 'tis preferable to lie beneath any lover
thou mayest choose, rather than to make thyself mother to thy cousins out
of thy uncle.
CXII.
