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Cambridge Latin Texts
Catullus: Selected Poems
A vivid and musical rendering of the poetry of Catullus, whose passionate verses have captivated readers for centuries
In the fourteenth century, a manuscript surfaced in Verona that had been lost for more than a thousand the poems of Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 BCE), considered by many to be one of the greatest poets who ever lived. These poems, with their beauty, wit, tenderness, and heartbreak, are still as alive and moving today as they were two thousand years ago.
They are dense, subtle, witty, ardent, fearless, deeply uncensored, nasty (sometimes), petty (sometimes), and always beautiful. It’s especially his love poems that have earned readers’ admiration over the centuries; the joy and the savage self-inflicted torments that he underwent in his “miserable, disastrous love affair” have been shaped into poems that for honesty and emotional power have few parallels in world literature.
Stephen Mitchell, who is known for bringing ancient texts to vibrant new life, has now translated Catullus’s poems for a new generation of readers. These are the first translations of Catullus to reimagine his rhythms in English and thus to let contemporary readers hear the formal beauty of his verse as well as its content, which Robert Lowell calls “much more raw and direct than anything in English.”
In the fourteenth century, a manuscript surfaced in Verona that had been lost for more than a thousand the poems of Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 BCE), considered by many to be one of the greatest poets who ever lived. These poems, with their beauty, wit, tenderness, and heartbreak, are still as alive and moving today as they were two thousand years ago.
They are dense, subtle, witty, ardent, fearless, deeply uncensored, nasty (sometimes), petty (sometimes), and always beautiful. It’s especially his love poems that have earned readers’ admiration over the centuries; the joy and the savage self-inflicted torments that he underwent in his “miserable, disastrous love affair” have been shaped into poems that for honesty and emotional power have few parallels in world literature.
Stephen Mitchell, who is known for bringing ancient texts to vibrant new life, has now translated Catullus’s poems for a new generation of readers. These are the first translations of Catullus to reimagine his rhythms in English and thus to let contemporary readers hear the formal beauty of his verse as well as its content, which Robert Lowell calls “much more raw and direct than anything in English.”
168 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
4 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
Catullus
329 books285 followersGaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84 BC – ca. 54 BC) was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art. Catullus invented the "angry love poem."
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 26, 2016
الجزء ده أفضل من الجزء الأول بكتير... وجود معجم للأعلام كان مفيد.... كمان كان أحيانًا بيكون فيه حواشي توضيحية بس كانت محتاجة تزيد بصراحة.... المقدمة أطول بكتير من مقدمة الجزء الأول فكانت شاملة لجزئيات أكتر عن كاتولّوس وحركة التجديد السكندري في روما اللي كان بينتميلها وعن أسلوبه وحياته بالتأكيد.
أما عن القصائد نفسها بقى فكان فيها تنوع ما بين أناشيد الزواج ... الأشعار المترجمة... المليحمة... قصائد عن الأصدقاء... عن حبيبته ليسبيا... عن وفاة أخيه... هجائيات... كان فيه تنوع كبير بس رغم تنوع المواضيع إلا إنه حافظ في قصايده على سمات حركة التجديد السكندري في روما.
كنت أتمنى يكون فيه تعليق على القصايد لأن فيه قصايد فكرتها مش واضحة فكنت بضطر أفتح كتب تانية علشان أقرا التعليق عليها.
أما عن القصائد نفسها بقى فكان فيها تنوع ما بين أناشيد الزواج ... الأشعار المترجمة... المليحمة... قصائد عن الأصدقاء... عن حبيبته ليسبيا... عن وفاة أخيه... هجائيات... كان فيه تنوع كبير بس رغم تنوع المواضيع إلا إنه حافظ في قصايده على سمات حركة التجديد السكندري في روما.
كنت أتمنى يكون فيه تعليق على القصايد لأن فيه قصايد فكرتها مش واضحة فكنت بضطر أفتح كتب تانية علشان أقرا التعليق عليها.
June 5, 2024
Poems written when Caesar was alive. Often vulgar and hilarious
September 3, 2024
10+ years ago i read a much older translation for dominick argento's "i hate and i love" choral cycle. the mitchell transition made me laugh out loud multiple times - catullus truly was rome's finest r/relationships poster and reply guy.
May 5, 2025
Strong forceful translation of meaty direct poetry for any age
April 11, 2011
Full of youthful piss-&-vinegar!
May 7, 2025
From 22, "Oh, speaking of Suffenus, whom you know..."
What's going on here? How can such a clever
fellow suddenly turn into a dope
who's coarser than the coarsest country bumpkin
the moment he sits down to write a poem?
And yet he's never happier than when
he's writing verse; he hugs himself, he thinks
he's awesome, the god's gift to Roman culture.
Ah well, aren't we all like that? There's no one
who isn't a Suffenus in some sense;
everyone has a knapsack of his faults
behind his back, but none of us can see it. (31)
43
People say that you're pretty, Ameana,
though your nose is too long, your feet undainty,
eyes dull, fingers too thich, and when you open
your wet lips, there's a tongue without refinement.
Concubine of that bankrupt prick Mamurra,
do the yokels compare you with our truly
stunning Lesbia? Oh this age--this tasteless,
coarse, unmannerly, stupid age we live in!
85
I hate and I love. Perhaps you are wondering how this can be.
I don't know, but I feel it and am in torment.
What's going on here? How can such a clever
fellow suddenly turn into a dope
who's coarser than the coarsest country bumpkin
the moment he sits down to write a poem?
And yet he's never happier than when
he's writing verse; he hugs himself, he thinks
he's awesome, the god's gift to Roman culture.
Ah well, aren't we all like that? There's no one
who isn't a Suffenus in some sense;
everyone has a knapsack of his faults
behind his back, but none of us can see it. (31)
43
People say that you're pretty, Ameana,
though your nose is too long, your feet undainty,
eyes dull, fingers too thich, and when you open
your wet lips, there's a tongue without refinement.
Concubine of that bankrupt prick Mamurra,
do the yokels compare you with our truly
stunning Lesbia? Oh this age--this tasteless,
coarse, unmannerly, stupid age we live in!
85
I hate and I love. Perhaps you are wondering how this can be.
I don't know, but I feel it and am in torment.
April 28, 2021
This has been a delight. A censored edition, however beautifully structured, which illustrates the important moments in the life of Catullus.
I have loved this edition which I read with Ancona’s Writing Passion.
I have loved this edition which I read with Ancona’s Writing Passion.
March 3, 2018
Invectives so crass they’d make your ancestors’ loins blush.
December 26, 2025
What the fuck did I just read? Like a burn book from 50-60 BCE, "she dumped me and is a whore!"
August 11, 2024
Wow wow wow
April 28, 2012
One of the most vulgar books I've read and one of the most lively, this translation of Catullus' verse, by Carl Sesar, presents en face translations of all the poems except for seven long ones and seven random others. Sesar notes that the remaining poems are "the poems I felt most and love the best," and it shows in his translations.
These poems veer from vituperation for Catullus legion of enemies, to love for various women and men, to despair upon the death of his brother, making these lyric poems of the entire human experience. These are not simply pretty little lyrics. They are words felt and thus written down, and they are filled with wit, including the most witty vulgarity I've ever read. Reading these poems, I can see from which well the Earl of Rochester drew his inspiration.
I do not know Latin, but I know enough Romance languages to see the meaning in individual words, if not the syntax that threads them together, so when I read the vulgarity in the Sesar's English I let my eyes slip to the Latin at the left, and I confirmed that the artful and direct profanity in the original. The word "irrumabo," close enough to its English cognate for me to understand, appears with hilarious frequency, and once, in a flash of irreverent profanity, Catullus compares a man's lips to "mulae cunnus," all at once comparing him to female genitalia, associated him with a lowly animal, and giving him status as a being that cannot even bear progeny. I'm not sure we have this kind of skill to use profanity anymore.
Yet the profanity is only part of the allure here. I bought this book primarily for the 101st poem to Catullus' brother, a tender and heartfelt poem, but I found many other things here. An entire life.
The copy I bought yesterday includes an inscription to an unknown Daniel (who, to my mind, duplicates the many named but otherwise unknown people in Catullus' poems), and the dedication Sesar gives is
Quod habe tibi quid quod hoc libelli qualecumque . . . .
These poems veer from vituperation for Catullus legion of enemies, to love for various women and men, to despair upon the death of his brother, making these lyric poems of the entire human experience. These are not simply pretty little lyrics. They are words felt and thus written down, and they are filled with wit, including the most witty vulgarity I've ever read. Reading these poems, I can see from which well the Earl of Rochester drew his inspiration.
I do not know Latin, but I know enough Romance languages to see the meaning in individual words, if not the syntax that threads them together, so when I read the vulgarity in the Sesar's English I let my eyes slip to the Latin at the left, and I confirmed that the artful and direct profanity in the original. The word "irrumabo," close enough to its English cognate for me to understand, appears with hilarious frequency, and once, in a flash of irreverent profanity, Catullus compares a man's lips to "mulae cunnus," all at once comparing him to female genitalia, associated him with a lowly animal, and giving him status as a being that cannot even bear progeny. I'm not sure we have this kind of skill to use profanity anymore.
Yet the profanity is only part of the allure here. I bought this book primarily for the 101st poem to Catullus' brother, a tender and heartfelt poem, but I found many other things here. An entire life.
The copy I bought yesterday includes an inscription to an unknown Daniel (who, to my mind, duplicates the many named but otherwise unknown people in Catullus' poems), and the dedication Sesar gives is
Quod habe tibi quid quod hoc libelli qualecumque . . . .
February 1, 2012
I review this from a position of complete ignorance, both of the original Latin poetry of Catullus or of any traditional translation of his works. So this was completely new to me & I enjoyed it a lot. I suspect a lot of of reviews of Catullus will use the word "bawdy" but it certainly fits - the tone is often conversational, lewd, or derogatory. Certainly a mile away from the lyricism that seems to be modern day poetry's default mode (which takes a bit of attuning to).
It's certainly intrigued me to find out more about Catullus, and the Latin poets in general, which I assume was the translator's intention. And I do love the fact that self-publishing has opened the door for projects like this, an obvious labour of love which wouldn't have seen the light of day in the pre-ebook age one feels.
It's certainly intrigued me to find out more about Catullus, and the Latin poets in general, which I assume was the translator's intention. And I do love the fact that self-publishing has opened the door for projects like this, an obvious labour of love which wouldn't have seen the light of day in the pre-ebook age one feels.
April 1, 2014
Unquestionably the snappiest translation of Catullus that anyone ever did anywhere. And a sheer delight to find it again after damn near forty years.
December 25, 2014
An absolute delight--funny, sexy, irreverent, beautiful, passionate and surely worth re-reading regularly.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews