Quotes from work
list of poems by Catullus

Gaio Valerio Catullo

This article lists the poems of Catullus and their various properties.

“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

“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
Context: 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.