Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/145



The woman I love says that there is no one whom she would rather marry than me, not if Jupiter himself were to woo her. Says; — but what a woman says to her ardent lover should be written in wind and running water.

J I

y

You used once to say that Catullus was your only friend, Lesbia, and that you would not have Jupiter rather than me. I loved you then, not only as the common sort loves a mistress, but as a father loves his sons and sons-in-law. Now I know you; and therefore, though I burn more ardently, yet you are in my sight much less worthy and lighter. How can that be? you say. Because such an injury as this drives a lover to love more, but to like less.

I J

Leave off wishing to deserve any thanks from anyone, or thinking that anyone can ever become grateful. All this wins no thanks; to have acted kindly does no good, rather it is a weariness and harmful; so is it now with me, who am vexed and troubled by no one so bitterly as by him who but now held me for his one and only friend.

c. 17