Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/107



foaming waves? what Syrtis, what ravening Scylla, what waste Charybdis bore thee, who for sweet life returnest such meed as this? Though marriage with me had not been dear to thee for dread of the harsh bidding of thy stern father, yet thou couldst have led me into thy dwellings to serve thee as a slave with labour of love, laving thy white feet with liquid water, or with purple coverlet spreading thy bed. But why should I cry in vain to the senseless airs distracted with woe, — the airs that are endowed with no feeling, and can neither hear nor return the messages of my voice? He meanwhile is now tossing almost in mid-sea, and no human being is seen on the waste and weedy shore. Thus overweening fortune too in this supreme hour has cruelly grudged her ears to my complaints. Almighty Jupiter, O that never, once the Attic ships had touched Gnosian shores, nor bearing the dreadful tribute to the savage bull the faithless sailor had unmoored his cable for Crete, nor that this evil man, hiding cruel designs under a fair outside, had reposed in our dwellings as a guest! For whither shall I return, lost, ah lost? on what hope do I lean? shall I seek the mountains of Idomeneus? — how broad the flood, how savage the tract of sea which divides them from me! Shall I hope for the aid of my father? — whom I deserted of my own will, to follow a lover dabbled with my brother's blood? Or shall I console myself with the faithful love of my spouse, who is flying from me, bending his tough oars in the wave? and here too is but the shore, with never a house, a desert island; no way to depart opens for me; about me are the waters of the sea, no means of flight, no hope; all is dumb, all is desolate; all shows me the face of death. Yet

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