Select Poems; Edited With Introductions, Notes, and Appendices by Francis P. Simpson

Cambridge Latin Texts

by Catullus, Francis P. Simpson

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Genres: Poetry, Classics

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Gaius 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."

Reviews

[Sarah Sabri · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

starting the month of love with the most toxic ancient relationship ever?

[Barry Westbrook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems written when Caesar was alive. Often vulgar and hilarious

[monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Chloe]

filing this and vergil biography under ‘i love that crazy old gay man’

[Robert Reinhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong forceful translation of meaty direct poetry for any age

[Scott Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of youthful piss-&-vinegar!

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Mitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved a lot of these poems -- ancients, they're just like us!

I mostly enjoyed the translation and how in the preface Mitchell discussed his approach that (paraphrase) what's lost in translation can open new pathways to bridge the gap between the past and present. I couldn't help but feel some things too familiar and others still remote, as if what makes these poems special in Latin has been made ordinary and casual in this English. Maybe that's the true jewel of these old poems? I don't know, but I will be considering it for some time and returning to many of these translations in the years to come.

[Wickerwatch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I savoured this book of poetry reading it piecemeal at a cafe that was the endpoint of my tri-weekly hike. I picked it up after almost a year on the shelf, it had been given to me as a gift by someone who had not thought much of it. I am so lucky to have had the fortune of remembering it at the completely right time. The events that led me to adore this book stand in my memory as a moment of such significant, single serendipity that the book completely altered the trajectory of my life.

[isabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

sorry catullus, i fear i misunderestimated your pettiness and lack of filter. genuinely he walked so modern horny tumblr poets could sprint. a total diva and dare i say, horny and dramatic and full of yearning but make it literary. it’s so fascinating to me that something written over 2000 years ago can still be so relatable on a soulful level. it did also make my jaw drop and i laughed out loud from being shocked.

[David Kowalski · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Hsu Jui-Ting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invectives so crass they’d make your ancestors’ loins blush.

[Yana · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the fuck did I just read? Like a burn book from 50-60 BCE, "she dumped me and is a whore!"

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious

[Farhan Haq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great modern translation of Catullus's poems alongside the Latin text. The book shows how earthy and often petty Catullus could be, with many poems attacking lesser poets in a vulgar but funny way.

[Gerardo Zamora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.

Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

[niamh ✨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Men don’t yearn anymore

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting more. I dunno.

[Tim L · Rating 3 out of 5]

The translation is a bit too loose at times. (for instance, he translates one of Catullus' most famous lines "ave atque vale" as simply "farewell"

[Alex Meves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow

[Geof Huth · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 . . . .

[James Everington · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Lamoreaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unquestionably the snappiest translation of Catullus that anyone ever did anywhere. And a sheer delight to find it again after damn near forty years.

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute delight--funny, sexy, irreverent, beautiful, passionate and surely worth re-reading regularly.

[Pekka · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wild ride. In turns, tender, witty, profane, bitchy; often laugh-out-loud hilarious; then all of a sudden a poem as sad as his tribute to his dead brother in #101. So full of life.

[Mills College Library]

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