'Poems' translated by Stefan Tobler

Untitled

Sea-wind struck the lines out, and tussled your hair,
which is my beloved’s hair, but was also his Lesbia’s:
Catullus didn’t stint in counting the kisses he gave her!
We stand on a hill, on the lookout for his verses,
the sea is still. And I think: two thousand years too late.


Sirmione Again

Catullus’s eleven syllables I scatter into the sea,
from it everything comes, to it everything returns.
So I remember, Catallus, your ashes, here on the cliff;
beside me Lesbia, grumbling, gives herself to the sea-wind.


A Detail

He only lightly touched, writes Rufinus,
Europa’s lips when kissing her.
Reading that, I fall towards you.


Figure of Speech
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