T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
To the Frequenters of a Low Tavern
By Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 B.C.)(From the Carmina; translated by Sir Richard F. Burton, 1894) |
SALACIOUS Tavern and ye taverner-host, | |
| From Pileate Brothers the ninth pile-post, | |
| D’ye claim, you only of the mentule boast, | |
| D’ye claim alone what damsels be the best | |
| To swive: as he-goats holding all the rest? | 5 |
| Is’t when like boobies sit ye incontinent here, | |
| One or two hundred, deem ye that I fear | |
| Two hundred … at one brunt? | |
| Ay, think so, natheless all your tavern-front | |
| With many a scorpion I will over-write. | 10 |
| For that my damsel, fro’ my breast took flight, | |
| By me so lovèd, as shall loved be none, | |
| Wherefor so mighty wars were waged and won, | |
| Does sit in public here. Ye fain, rich wights, | |
| All woo her: thither too (the chief of slights!) | 15 |
| All pitiful knaves and by-street wenchers fare, | |
| And thou, (than any worse), with hanging hair, | |
| In coney-breeding Celtiberia bred, | |
| Egnatius! bonnified by beard full-fed, | |
| And teeth with Spanish urine polishèd. | 20 |