Catullus - 64 lyrics

Catullus 64 Pines in the past, born from the brow of Pelion, Are rumoured to have swum through Neptune's clear waves To Phasis' breakers and the frontiers of Aeetes, When chosen young men, oaks of Argive adulthood, Eager to rob the Colchians of a gilded hide, Ventured the voyage past salt shoals in a swift hull, Sweeping blue-green levels with palms of silver fir. For them the Goddess Guardian of high citadels In person made a car to fly with the light breeze By joining interwoven pinewood to curved keel. Its prow inured raw Amphitrite to ships' courses. As soon as with its beak it ploughed the windy plain And, by oarage spiralled, wave grew white with foam, Out of the gleaming surge wild faces arose, Aequoreal Nereids, marvelling at the portent. In that and not another day's light mortal eyes Beheld the bodies of the Nymphs of Ocean naked Far as the s**lers standing out from the white surge. Then Peleus, it is told, for Thetis burned with love, Then Thetis did not despise human hymeneals, Then the Father Himself felt Peleus should yoke with Thetis. O born in a time of all the ages too much missed, Hail, heroes, breed of Gods! O noble progeny Of mothers beautiful, I hail you once again! I shall invoke you often, invoke you in my song, And you above all, blest by happy bridal torches, Thessaly's pillar, Peleus, to whom Jove himself, The Father of the Gods himself resigned his love. Did Thetis, fairest Ncreine, embrace you? Did Tethys allow you to wed her granddaughter And Ocean's who encircles all the globe with sea; But when at the appointed time those longed-for days Arrived, the whole of Thessaly by invitation Crowds the house, fills the palace with delighted throng. They bring gifts with them. Faces manifest their joy. Cierus is deserted, they leave Phthiotian Tempe And Crannon's houses and the walls of Larisa. They flock to Pharsalus;, they crowd Pharsalian roofs. None tills the soil; the necks of oxen become soft. No low-grown vine is cleared of weeds by bent-pronged rake. No bullock cleaves the clod with deep-driven ploughshare. No pruner's hook thins out the shade of leafy trees. Slovenly rust attacks the solitary ploughs. The lung's own quarters, though, far as the sumptuous Palace stretched backward, shine with lustrous gold and silver. Ivory gleams on thrones, cups glow upon the board, The whole house revels in the glint of royal treasure. 265-408 = wedding of Peleus and Thetis The coverlet, with such figures grandly decorated, Embracing the divan veiled and enveloped it; With eager study of which after Thessaly's folk Were sated, they made way then for the holy Gods. Here, even as Zephyrus ruffling the tranquil sea With early morning breath arouses the slope waves (While Dawn comes up to the threshold of the roving Sun) Which slowly at first, being driven by a clement breeze, Process and lightly break with a mournful guffaw, Then, the wind strengthening, grow bigger, multiply And swimming in the distance gleam with crimson light, So, by the forecourt then leaving the royal palace, The guests dispersed on roving feet each to his home. And after their departure, first of all, from Pelion's Summit Chiron came, bringing woodland gifts. For all the flowers the plains bear, all that Thessaly Grows on her mighty mountains, all that warm Favonius' Fruitful breeze produces near the rippling river, All these he brought himself, arranged in random bunches, Charmed by whose delightful fragrance the house laughed. Straightway Penios comes, leaving verdant Tempe, Tempe by overhanging woodland ringed above, For the Haemonian Dryads to celebrate with dances, Not empty-handed, for he carried, root and all, Lofty beeches and tall laurels with straight stem, Not without nodding plane-trees and the supple sister Of burnt-out Phaethon and airy cypresses. These he placed all around the entrance, intertwined, So that the forecourt might grow green, screened with soft leaves. There follows after him Prometheus of crafty heart, Bearing faded traces of the ancient punishment Which formerly, with limbs fast bound by chain to flint, He paid by hanging over a sheer precipice. Then the Father of Gods with holy wife and children Arrived from Heaven, leaving you, Phoebus, alone Together with the sibling Dweller on Idrus' mountains; For equally with you your sister despised Peleus And refused to attend Thetis' nuptial torches. But after they had bent their limbs to snow-white seats, The tables were heaped lavishly with various courses. Meanwhile, their bodies shaking with infirmity, The three Parcae began to chant their soothsaying. A fair white robe embracing all their trembling body Fell about their ankles with its purple edge, While rosy fillets rested on their snow-white heads And their hands duly plied the everlasting task. The left hand held the distaff mantled in soft wool; The right, first, lightly drawing down the threads with upturned Fingers shaped them, then, with downturned thumb twisting, Revolved the spindle balanced by its rounded whorl; And all the time their teeth tore off and smoothed the work And to their thin dry lips clung bitten tufts of wool Which previously obtruded on the even thread. Moreover at their feet the soft fleeces of dazzling White wool were safely stored in plaited osier baskets. They then, plucking the fleeces, with clear-sounding voice Poured out in a prophetic song such fates as these- A song no after-age will ever charge with falsehood: “O you, enhancing rare distinction with great virtues, Emathia's guardian, most dear to the son of Ops, Hear what the sisters cry for you in this glad light, Their truthful oracle. But you that the fates follow Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. For you there'll come soon, bringing heart's desire to bridegrooms, Hesperus; with his lucky star there'll come a consort To bathe your being for you in soul-searching love And ready to consort with you in swooning slumbers, Laying her smooth arms underneath your stalwart neck. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. No house has ever given shelter to such loves, No love has ever joined lovers in such treaty As is the harmony between Peleus and Thetis. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. There shall be born to you one free from fear-Achilles, Known to the enemy not by back but valiant front, Who many a time victorious in far-ranging race Will overtake the fiery slots of the swift deer. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. There's not a hero shall compare with him in war, When plains of Phrygia shall flow with Teucrian blood And in the siege of that long war the walls of Troy Shall be destroyed by the third heir of perjured Pelops. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. His extraordinary virtues and famed deeds Shall mothers often own at their son's funeral, When they shall loose dishevelled hair from their white crowns And with impotent palms shall bruise their withered breasts. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. For as a reaper lopping off the close-packed corn-ears Beneath the burning sun reaps golden-yellow ploughland, He shall cut down with raised steel bodies of Trojan-born. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. Scamander's wave shall witness to his great virtues, Which spreads out every way in the swift Hellespont And whose course he will choke with slaughtered heaps of bodies, Warming the deep river with intermingled blood. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. Last witness will be the prize given him even in d**h When heaped up in a lofty mound his rounded tomb Duly receives the snow-white limbs of a butchered virgin. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. For soon as Fortune grants the weary Achaeans means To undo Neptune's knot around the Dardan city, His high tomb will be drenched in Polyxena's blood, Who, like a slain beast falling to the two-edged sword, Shall lay down, sinking to her knees, a headless body. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. Come therefore and consort in long-imagined love. Her consort shall accept the Goddess in glad treaty And at long last shall bride be given to eager groom. Run spindles, drawing out the weft, run on. Her nurse revisiting her at first light tomorrow Shall fail to tie yesterday's ribbon round her neck, Nor shall an anxious mother, sad at her quarrelling daughter Sleeping apart, stop hoping for dear grandchildren. Run, spindles, drawing out the weft, run on.” Foretelling in the past such happiness for Peleus From their inspired breast the Parcae sang their song. For long ago Heaven's Dwellers in person used to visit The chaste homes of heroes and show themselves at mortal Meetings, while religion was not yet held in scorn. Often the Father of Gods, enthroned in shining temple, When with their festal days his annual rites had come, Would watch one hundred bulls slump prostrate to the ground. Often nomadic Liber from Parna**us' top Would drive his baying Thyads with their hair flying, While Delphians in concert rushing from their town Cave the God joyous welcome with smoke of sacrifice. And often Mavors in war's deadly competition Or rapid Triton's Lady or the Amarynthian Maid Would hearten by their presence armed companies of men.
But after Earth was stained with crime unspeakable And all evicted Justice from their greedy thoughts, Brothers poured the blood of brothers on their hands, Sons no longer grieved when parents pa**ed away, Father prayed for d**h of son in his first youth So as freely to possess the bloom of a new bride, Mother, lying impiously with ignorant son, Dared impiously to sin against divine Penates. Our evil madness by confounding fair with foul Has turned away from us the Gods' forgiving thoughts. Wherefore they neither deign to visit such meetings Nor let themselves be touched by light of day or eye.