Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/47



Sirmio, bright eye of peninsulas and islands, all that in liquid lakes or vast ocean cither Neptune bears: how willingly and with what joy I revisit you, scarcely trusting myself that I have left Thynia and the Bithynian plains, and that I see you in safety. Ah, what is more blessed than to put cares away, when the mind lays by its burden, and tired with labour of far travel we have come to our own home and rest on the couch we longed for. This it is which alone is worth all these toils. Welcome, lovely Sirmio, and rejoice in your master, and rejoice ye too, waters of the Lydian lake, and laugh out aloud whatever laughter you have in the depths of your home.

I entreat you, my sweet Ipsithilla, my darling, my charmer, bid me to come and rest at noonday with you. And if you do bid me, grant me this kindness too, that no one may bar the panel of your threshold, nor you yourself choose to go away, but stay at home. But if you will at all, then

bid me come at once....

Cleverest of all clothes-stealers at the baths, father Vibennius and you his profligate son, off

with you into banishment and the dismal regions, since the father's plunderings are known to all the world.... 5