CATTULUS XI
Furius and Aurelius, bound to Catullus
Though he penetrate to the ends of the Indies
Where the eastern ocean crashing in echoes
Pours up the shore,
Or into Hyrcania, soft Arabia,
~ong
Tartars or the archers of Parthia,
Or where the Nile current, seven times the same,
Colors the waters,
Or through the beetling Alps, by steep passes, should come
To look on the monuments of great Caesar,
Gaul, the Rhine, and at the world's bitter end
The gruesome Britons,
Friends, alike set to share or brave with me
Whatever the
will
of heaven may send,
To my mistress take these few sentiments,
Put none too nicely:
Let her spread for her lechers and get her pleasure,
Lying wide to three hundred in one heat,
Loving none truly, but leaving them every one
Wrung out and dropping;
But as for my love, let her not count on it
As
once she could: by her own fault it died
As
a flower at the edge of a field, which the plow
Claws
out in passing.
