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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  To Aufilena

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

To Aufilena

By Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 B.C.)
 
(Translated by George Lamb)

I LIKE girls, Aufilena, of consciences nice,
  For the favours they grant who are honestly paid;
But you, who have cheated, and taken the price
  Of the love you withhold, are an infamous jade.
 
’Tis an honest girl’s part, what she’s promised, to do;        5
  ’T were a modest one’s not to have promised the deed:
But she who can jilt, while she pockets like you
  The money for favours she will not concede,
Commits a base fraud, which would shame and disgrace
  The lowest and worst of the prostitute race.        10