I am shocked to discover that the previous post was number one thousand. Damn, that’s a lot of my blather.
To celebrate my millenipost, I present some of my favourite Latin poetry. This piece is commonly referred to by the highly creative and poetic name “Catallus 5”, since it’s the fifth of surviving works of Catallus.
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt;
nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum;
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus, illa ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus invidere possit
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.
No, I don’t expect any of you (except Allison, if she sees this between retsina parties) to be able to read that. You all know how to use Google, though, so you can find translations. I’ll spare you those two clicks though–here’s a rough attempt to capture the “feel” in a modern idiom:
Let us live, Lesbia, and let us love —
ignore the small-minded talk of old people!
The sun rises and sets and rises again,
but we live only once; after the brief sunshine
of our lives, a night of eternal sleep will claim us.
Give me a thousand kisses, and then a hundred,
then another thousand and a second hundred,
then thousands more kisses until we’ve lost count;
we should not keep track, neither we nor any
evil-minded person who might envy us our kisses.
