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Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus

poet · Roman Republic · 84?–54? BC

A young Roman poet who died at about thirty. In short poems he wrote of his love and hatred for the lover he called Lesbia.

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c. 57 BC · At the grave of his brother, buried in a far country

Take these, wet through with a brother's tears, and for ever, brother, hail and farewell.

accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, atque in perpetuum, frater, aue atque uale.

Poem 101

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c. 55 BC

I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you may ask. I do not know, but I feel it happening, and I am in torment.

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Poem 85

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c. 55 BC

You will dine well at my house, my Fabullus, in a few days, if the gods are kind to you, if you bring with you a good, big dinner, and do not forget a pretty girl and wine and salt and all the laughter. Bring these, I say, my charming friend, and you will dine well; for your Catullus has a purse full of cobwebs.

Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus, si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam cenam, non sine candida puella et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis. haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster, cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli plenus sacculus est aranearum.

Poem 13

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c. 55 BC · To his lover Lesbia

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred.

da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

Poem 5

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