“It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-standing love.”
Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem.
LXXVI, line 13
Carmina
“To this point is my mind reduced by your fault, Lesbia, and has so ruined itself by its own devotion, that now it can neither wish you well though you should become the best of women, nor cease to love you though you do the worst that can be done.”
Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa
atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,
ut iam nec bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias,
nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.
LXXV, lines 1–4
Carmina
“I hate and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment.”
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
LXXXV, lines 1–2
Carmina
“Mourn, ye Graces and Loves, and all you whom the Graces love. My lady's sparrow is dead, the sparrow my lady's pet, whom she loved more than her own eyes.”
Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque,
Et quantum est hominum venustiorum.
Passer mortuus est meae puellae,
Passer, deliciae meae puellae.
III, lines 1–4
Lord Byron's translation:
Ye Cupids, droop each little head,
Nor let your wings with joy be spread:
My Lesbia's favourite bird is dead,
Whom dearer than her eyes she loved.
Carmina