Catulle citations

Catulle était un poète romain. Selon Suétone, il serait né à Vérone en Gaule cisalpine ou peut-être à Sirmio sur le lac Benacus en -84. Il mourut aux alentours de -54 à Rome, où il passa la plus grande partie de sa vie. Wikipedia  

✵ 84 av. J.-C. – 54 av. J.-C.   •   Autres noms Catullus Gaius Valerius, Catullus, Гай Валерий Катулл
Catulle photo
Catulle: 32   citations 0   J'aime

Catulle citations célèbres

“À qui dédier, tout neuf, ce joli petit livre, qu'une sèche pierre ponce a récemment poli?”

Cui dono lepidum novum libellum
Arido modo pumice expolitum ?
la
Premiers vers du premier poème. La pierre ponce était utilisée pour ébarber les extrémités du rouleau de papyrus (volumen) une fois qu'on avait terminé d'écrire le livre.
Source: Édition citée, page 2, note 1.

“Vivons, ma Lesbia, aimons-nous et que tous les murmures des vieillards moroses aient pour nous la valeur d'un as. Les feux du soleil peuvent mourir et renaître; nous, quand une fois est morte la brève lumière de notre vie, il nous faut dormir une seule et même nuit éternelle. Donne-moi mille baisers, puis cent, puis mille autres, puis une seconde fois cent, puis encore mille autres, puis cent. Et puis, après en avoir additionné beaucoup de milliers, nous embrouillerons le compte si bien que nous ne le sachions plus et qu'un envieux ne puisse nous porter malheur, en apprenant qu'il s'est donné tant de baisers.”

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus...
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi basia mille, deine centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
Conturbaminus illa, ne sciamus,
Aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.
la
Poème 6.
Source: Pièce de monnaie romaine de très faible valeur.

“Pleurez, ô Vénus; pleurez, Amours, et vous tous, tant que vous êtes, hommes sensibles à la beauté. Il est mort, le moineau de mon amie, le moineau, délices de mon amie, qu'elle chérissait plus que ses yeux.”

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque,
Et quantum est hominum uenustiorum.
Passer mortuus est meae puellae,
Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.
la
Passage fameux du poème 3 sur le moineau de Lesbie.

“Courez en étirant les fils que suivent les destinées : courez, fuseaux.”

Currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusis.
la
Refrain du chant des Parques dans le poème 64.

“Je vous enculerai et me ferai sucer, Aurelius le giton et toi, Furius, l'enculé, qui, parce que mes petits vers sont licencieux, m'avez accusé de dévergondage.”

Pedicabo ego uos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
Qui me ex verseculis meis putastis,
Quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
la
Début du poème 16

“Malheureux, Catulle, cesse d'être sot et ce que tu vois perdu, tiens-le pour perdu.”

Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
Et quod uides perisse perditum ducas.
la
Début du poème 8.

Catulle: Citations en anglais

“Idleness ere now has ruined both kings and wealthy cities.”
Otium et reges prius et beatas perdidit urbes.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LI, last lines
Carmina

“If I have led a pure life.”
Si vitam puriter egi.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXXVI, line 19
Carmina

“Leave off wishing to deserve any thanks from anyone, or thinking that anyone can ever become grateful.”
Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri, Aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXXIII, lines 1–2
Carmina

“Suns may set and rise again. For us, when the short light has once set, remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night.”
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus<br/>rumoresque senum severiorum<br/>omnes unius aestimemus assis soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

V, lines 1–6
Thomas Campion's translation:
My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love;
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them: Heaven's great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But, soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
From A Book of Airs (1601)
Carmina
Contexte: Let us live, my Lesbia, and love, and value at one farthing all the talk of crabbed old men. Suns may set and rise again. For us, when the short light has once set, remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night.

“It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-standing love.”
Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXXVI, line 13
Carmina

“There is nothing more silly than a silly laugh.”
Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

XXXIX, line 16
Carmina

“All right and wrong, confounded in impious madness, turned from us the righteous will of the gods.”
Omnia fanda nefanda malo permixta furore iustificam nobis mentem avertere deorum.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXIV
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.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXXV, lines 1–4
Carmina

“What a woman says to her ardent lover should be written in wind and running water.”
Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.
LXX, lines 3–4. Compare Keats' epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
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.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
LXXXV, lines 1–2
Carmina

“You ask how many kissings of you, Lesbia, are enough for me and more than enough?”
Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque?

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

VII, lines 1–2
Carmina

“If a man can take any pleasure in recalling the thought of kindnesses done.”
Siqua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas Est homini.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXXVI, lines 1–2
Carmina

“If anything ever happened to any one who eagerly longed and never hoped, that is a true pleasure to the mind.”
Si quicquam cupido optantique optigit umquam insperanti, hoc est gratum animo proprie.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

CVII, lines 1–2
Carmina

“Henceforth let no woman believe a man's oath, let none believe that a man's speeches can be trustworthy. They, while their mind desires something and longs eagerly to gain it, nothing fear to swear, nothing spare to promise; but as soon as the lust of their greedy mind is satisfied, they fear not then their words, they heed not their perjuries.”
Nunc iam nulla viro iuranti femina credat, nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles; quis dum aliquid cupiens animus praegestit apisci, nil metuunt iurare, nihil promittere parcunt: sed simul ac cupidae mentis satiata libido est, dicta nihil metuere, nihil periuria curant.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXIV
Carmina

“He seems to me to be equal to a god, he, if it may be, seems to surpass the very gods, who sitting opposite thee again and again gazes at thee and hears thee sweetly laughing.”
Ille mi par esse Deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare Divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LI, lines 1–5. Cf. Sappho 31.
Carmina

“What is given by the gods more desirable than the fortunate hour?”
Quid datur a divis felici optatius hora?

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXII
Carmina

“Now he goes along the dark road, thither whence they say no one returns.”
Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

III, lines 11–12
Carmina

“Wandering through many countries and over many seas I come, my brother, to these sorrowful obsequies, to present you with the last guerdon of death, and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes, since fortune has taken your own self away from me—alas, my brother, so cruelly torn from me! Yet now meanwhile take these offerings, which by the custom of our fathers have been handed down—a sorrowful tribute—for a funeral sacrifice; take them, wet with many tears of a brother, and for ever, my brother, hail and farewell!”
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis Et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem. Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi, Nunc tamen interea haec prisco quae more parentum Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

CI, lines 1–10
Sir William Marris's translation:
By many lands and over many a wave
I come, my brother, to your piteous grave,
To bring you the last offering in death
And o'er dumb dust expend an idle breath;
For fate has torn your living self from me,
And snatched you, brother, O, how cruelly!
Yet take these gifts, brought as our fathers bade
For sorrow's tribute to the passing shade;
A brother's tears have wet them o'er and o'er;
And so, my brother, hail, and farewell evermore!
Carmina

“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.”
O quid solutis est beatius curis, cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum, desideratoque acquiescimus lecto? hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

XXXI, lines 7–11
Carmina

“To whom am I to present my pretty new book, freshly smoothed off with dry pumice stone?”
Cui dono lepidum novum libellum Arido modo pumice expolitum?

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

I, 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.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

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

“Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred.”
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

V, lines 8–7
Carmina

“As a flower springs up secretly in a fenced garden, unknown to the cattle, torn up by no plough, which the winds caress, the sun strengthens, the shower draws forth, many boys, many girls, desire it.”
Ut flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis, Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro, Quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber; Multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXII
Carmina

“What he himself is, whether he is or is not, he does not know so much as this.”
Ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

XVII, line 22
Carmina

“Over head and heels.”
Per caputque pedesque.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

XVII, line 9
Carmina

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