Catullus 22 Flashcards
non non hoc tibi, salse, sic abibit.
It won’t end like this for you, salty/funny/witty guy.
nam si luxerit ad librariorum
curram scrinia,
For, if there is light, I will run to the
shelves of the booksellers,
Caesios, Aquinos,
Suffenum, omnia colligam venena.
I will collect all the poisons:
the Caesiuses, the Aquinos, the Suffenuses.
ac te his suppliciis remunerabor.
I will repay you with these punishments.
vos hinc interea valete abite
Meanwhile you, farewell, go away from here,
illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis,
to that place, from where you got your bad foot,
saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae.
curses of our age, very bad poets.
Suffenus iste, Vare, quem probe nosti,
That Suffenus, Varus, whom you know well,
homo est venustus et dicax et urbanus,
is a man charming, and witty, and sophisticated/urbane,
idemque longe plurimos facit versus.
and the same man makes very many verses by far.
puto esse ego illi milia aut decem aut plura
I think that there are thousands of verses, either 10,000 or more
perscripta, nec sic ut fit in palimpsesto
relata:
written out by that man, not thus as it happens written on a palimpsest:
cartae regiae, novi libri,
novi umbilici, lora rubra membranae,
royal papers, new books,
new knobs, red straps of the book cover,
derecta plumbo et pumice omnia aequata.
all sheets having been ruled with lead and made smooth with pumice stone.
haec cum legas tu, bellus ille et urbanus
When you read these things, that handsome and sophisticated
Suffenus unus caprimulgus aut fossor
rursus videtur:
Suffenus seems again/on the contrary to be alone a goatmilker/goatherder or a ditchdigger:
tantum abhorret ac mutat.
so much does he shrink (away from himself) and change.
hoc quid putemus esse? qui modo scurra
Why do we think that this is? (This man) who recently seemed a fashionable man about town,
aut si quid hac re scitius videbatur,
or if any thing seemed more polished than this thing,
idem infaceto est infacetior rure,
the same man is more dull than the dull countryside
simul poemata attigit, neque idem umquam
as soon as he touches poems, nor is that same man
aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit:
not ever equally as happy as when he is writing a poem:
tam gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur.
he rejoices so in himself and he himself so marvels at himself.
nimirum idem omnes fallimur, neque est quisquam
No wonder we are all deceived in the same way, nor is there anyone
quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum
possis.
Whom you could see not to be Suffenus in some thing.
suus cuique attributus est error;
To each person has been allotted their own mistake;
sed non videmus manticae quod in tergo est.
But we do not see what of the backpack is on our back.
