Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/45



Debauched Romulus, will you see and endure this? You are shameless and voracious and a gambler. Was it this then, you one and only general, that took you to the furthest island of the West? was it that that worn-out profligate of yours, Mentula, should devour twenty or thirty millions? What else then, if this be not, is perverted liberality? Mis ancestral property was first torn to shreds; then came his prize-money from Pontus, then in the third place that from the Hiberus, which the gold- bearing river Tagus knows all about. And him do the Gauls and Britains fear? Why do you both support this scoundrel? or what can he do but devour rich patrimonies? Was it for this f t that you,

father-in-law and son-in-law, have ruined everything?

Alfenus, ungrateful and false to your faithful comrades, do you henceforward (ah cruel!) not pity your beloved friend? — henceforward not shrink from betraying me, deceiving me, faithless one? Do the deeds of deceivers please the gods above? — All this you disregard, and desert me in my sorrow and trouble; ah, tell me, what are men to do, whom are they to trust? For truly you used to bid me trust my soul to you (ah unjust!), leading me into love as if all were safe for me; you, who now draw back from me, and let the winds and vapours of the air bear k away all your words and deeds unratified. If you have forgotten this, yet the gods remember it, remembers Faith, who will soon make you repent of your deed.