| Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus reumoresque senum seueriorium omnes unius aestimemus assis! Soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis cum semel occidit beuis lux, nox est perpetua una dormeinda. Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, deinde mille altera, dein secunda centum. Dein, cum milia multa fecermus, conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus inuidere possit, cum tantum sciat esse basiorum. ~Catallus (84-54BC) to his lover |
| Da Mi Basia Mille Come and let us live my Deare, Let us love and never feare, What the sorrowest Fathers say: Brightest sun that dies today Lives again as bright tomorrow, But if we dark sons of sorrow Set, then, how long a Night Shuts the Eyes of our short light! Then let amorous kisses dwell On our lips, begin and tell A Thousand, and a Hundred score, an Hundred, and a Thousand more, Till another Thousand smother That, and that wipe off another. Thus at last when we have numbered Many a Thousand, many a Hundred; We'll confound the reckoning quite, And lost our selves in wild delight: While our joyes so multiply, As shall mocke the envious eye. ~ translated by Richard Crashaw (1612-1649) |
| The following is the originial text and translation of my favorite poem, Da Mi Basia Mille by Catullus. The translation was done by Richard Crashaw in the early seventeenth century. |
| Catallus's Poem |
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