Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Catullus 5: Lesbia's Kisses


Let’s live, my Lesbia, and let’s make love
And at a penny and no more for us
Let’s value all the stories of censorious
Old men. The sun can set and it can rise again.
But when our one brief light at last descends,
We’ll sleep away a night that never ends.

So give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred more.
Another thousand, then a second hundred, then
A thousand and a hundred like you did before
And when we've reached ten thousand kisses, then
We’ll just reshuffle  and unnumber every one of them
So that we’ll know the evil minded can't be envious
That there could be so many kisses for the two of us.

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,
conturbābimus illa, ne sciāmus,
aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.


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