No More Learning

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Eke to our brother beloved, destruction ever lamented
Brought she: O Brother for aye lost unto wretchedmost me,
Oh, to thy wretchedmost brother lost the light of his life-tide,
Buried together wi' thee lieth the whole of our house:
Perisht along wi' thyself forthright all joys we enjoyed, 95
Douce joys fed by thy love during the term of our days;
Whom now art tombed so far nor 'mid familiar pavestones
Nor wi' thine ashes stored near to thy kith and thy kin,
But in that Troy obscene, that Troy of ill-omen, entombed
Holds thee, an alien earth-buried in uttermost bourne. 100
Thither in haste so hot ('tis said) from allwhere the Youth-hood
Grecian, fared in hosts forth of their hearths and their homes,
Lest with a stolen punk with fullest of pleasure should Paris
Fairly at leisure and ease sleep in the pacific bed.
Such was the hapless chance, most beautiful Laodamia, 105
Tare fro' thee dearer than life, dearer than spirit itself,
Him, that husband, whose love in so mighty a whirlpool of passion
Whelmed thee absorbed and plunged deep in its gulfy abyss,
E'en as the Grecians tell hard by Pheneus of Cyllene
Drained was the marish and dried, forming the fattest of soils, 110
Whenas in days long done to delve through marrow of mountains
Dared, falsing his sire, Amphtryoniades;
What time sure of his shafts he smote Stymphalian monsters
Slaying their host at the hest dealt by a lord of less worth,
So might the gateway of Heaven be trodden by more of the godheads, 115
Nor might Hebe abide longer to maidenhood doomed.
Yet was the depth of thy love far deeper than deepest of marish
Which the hard mistress's yoke taught him so tamely to bear;
Never was head so dear to a grandsire wasted by life-tide
Whenas one daughter alone a grandson so tardy had reared, 120
Who being found against hope to inherit riches of forbears
In the well-witnessed Will haply by name did appear,
And 'spite impious hopes of baffled claimant to kinship
Startles the Vulturine grip clutching the frost-bitten poll.
Nor with such rapture e'er joyed his mate of snowy-hued plumage 125
Dove-mate, albeit aye wont in her immoderate heat
Said be the bird to snatch hot kisses with beak ever billing,
As diddest thou:--yet is Woman multivolent still.
But thou 'vailedest alone all these to conquer in love-lowe,
When conjoined once more unto thy yellow-haired spouse. 130
Worthy of yielding to her in naught or ever so little
Came to the bosom of us she, the fair light of my life,
Round whom fluttering oft the Love-God hither and thither
Shone with a candid sheen robed in his safflower dress.
She though never she bide with one Catullus contented, 135
Yet will I bear with the rare thefts of my dame the discreet,
Lest over-irk I give which still of fools is the fashion.
Often did Juno eke Queen of the Heavenly host
Boil wi' the rabidest rage at dire default of a husband
Learning the manifold thefts of her omnivolent Jove, 140
Yet with the Gods mankind 'tis nowise righteous to liken,
* * * *
* * * *
Rid me of graceless task fit for a tremulous sire.
Yet was she never to me by hand paternal committed
Whenas she came to my house reeking Assyrian scents;
Nay, in the darkness of night her furtive favours she deigned me, 145
Self-willed taking herself from very mate's very breast.
Wherefore I hold it enough since given to us and us only
Boon of that day with Stone whiter than wont she denotes.
This to thee--all that I can--this offering couched in verses
(Allius! ) as my return give I for service galore; 150
So wi' the seabriny rust your name may never be sullied
This day and that nor yet other and other again.
Hereto add may the Gods all good gifts, which Themis erewhiles
Wont on the pious of old from her full store to bestow:
Blest be the times of the twain, thyself and she who thy life is, 155
Also the home wherein dallied we, no less the Dame,
Anser to boot who first of mortals brought us together,
Whence from beginning all good Fortunes that blest us were born.
Lastly than every else one dearer than self and far dearer,
Light of my life who alive living to me can endear.
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That when, opprest by fortune and in grievous case, thou didst send me this
epistle o'erwrit with tears, that I might bear up shipwrecked thee tossed
by the foaming waves of the sea, and restore thee from the threshold of
death; thou whom neither sacred Venus suffers to repose in soft slumber,
desolate on a a lonely couch, nor do the Muses divert with the sweet song
of ancient poets, whilst thy anxious mind keeps vigil:--this is grateful to
me, since thou dost call me thy friend, and dost seek hither the gifts of
the Muses and of Venus. But that my troubles may not be unknown to thee, O
Manius, nor thou deem I shun the office of host, hear how I am whelmed in
the waves of that same fortune, nor further seek joyful gifts from a
wretched one. In that time when the white vestment was first handed to me,
and my florid age was passing in jocund spring, much did I sport enow: nor
was the goddess unknown to us who mixes bitter-sweet with our cares. But my
brother's death plunged all this pursuit into mourning. O brother, taken
from my unhappy self; thou by thy dying hast broken my ease, O brother; all
our house is buried with thee; with thee have perished the whole of our
joys, which thy sweet love nourished in thy lifetime. Thou lost, I have
dismissed wholly from mind these studies and every delight of mind.
Wherefore, as to what thou writest, "'Tis shameful for Catullus to be at
Verona, for there anyone of utmost note must chafe his frigid limbs on a
desolate couch;" that, Manius, is not shameful; rather 'tis a pity.
Therefore, do thou forgive, if what grief has snatched from me, these
gifts, I do not bestow on thee, because I am unable. For, that there is no
great store of writings with me arises from this, that we live at Rome:
there is my home, there is my hall, thither my time is passed; hither but
one of my book-cases follows me. As 'tis thus, I would not that thou deem
we act so from ill-will or from a mind not sufficiently ingenuous, that
ample store is not forthcoming to either of thy desires: both would I
grant, had I the wherewithal. Nor can I conceal, goddesses, in what way
Allius has aided me, or with how many good offices he has assisted me; nor
shall fleeting time with its forgetful centuries cover with night's
blindness this care of his. But I tell it to you, and do ye declare it to
many thousands, and make this paper, grown old, speak of it * * * * And let
him be more and more noted when dead, nor let the spider aloft, weaving her
thin-drawn web, carry on her work over the neglected name of Allius. For
you know what anxiety of mind wily Amathusia gave me, and in what manner
she overthrew me, when I was burning like the Trinacrian rocks, or the
Malian fount in Oetaean Thermopylae; nor did my piteous eyes cease to
dissolve with continual weeping, nor my cheeks with sad showers to be
bedewed. As the pellucid stream gushes forth from the moss-grown rock on
the aerial crest of the mountain, which when it has rolled headlong prone
down the valley, softly wends its way through the midst of the populous
parts, sweet solace to the wayfarer sweating with weariness, when the
oppressive heat cracks the burnt-up fields agape: or, as to sailors
tempest-tossed in black whirlpool, there cometh a favourable and a
gently-moving breeze, Pollux having been prayed anon, and Castor alike
implored: of such kind was Manius' help to us. He with a wider limit laid
open my closed field; he gave us a home and its mistress, on whom we both
might exercise our loves in common. Thither with gracious gait my
bright-hued goddess betook herself, and pressed her shining sole on the
worn threshold with creaking of sandal; as once came Laodamia, flaming with
love for her consort, to the home of Protesilaus,--a beginning of naught!