Green Linden Press

1

Whom to dedicate this slim book of verse to,
just now polished and inked with my revisions?
Dear Cornelius, to you, who used to think that
these small things that I wrote had some real value,
long ago when, alone among Italians,
you dared publish the annals of the world in
three fat scrolls that were filled with your great learning.
Please, then, welcome this book, which is as good as
I could make it. (And please, dear patron goddess,
let it last, if you can, beyond one lifetime.)

2

Little sparrow, my girl’s delight and darling,
whom she holds in her lap and sometimes gives you,
my sweet beauty, her fingertip to peck at,
teases you and provokes you to bite harder,
plays a dozen more games with you and tries to
soothe the pain of her constant, burning passion—
would that I, playing games with you as she does,
found a way I could lighten my heart’s sorrow!

3

Mourn, O mourn, you divinities of love and
you with hearts that are sensitive to beauty:
my girl’s sparrow is dead, her pretty playmate,
whom she, more than her own eyes, loved and cherished.
Sweet as honey he was and knew his mistress
just as well as a small girl knows her mother:
would not fly from her lap but, gayly hopping
here and there on her thighs, he would continue
his melodious chirping, for her only.
Now he hops down the dismal road to Hades,
toward the country that no one has returned from.
You foul shadows of death, a curse upon you!
—vile devourers of all things glad and lovely,
who have taken away that pretty sparrow.
Ah, you dear little bird, you died too early.
Now, because you have gone, my darling’s eyelids
look puffed up and her eyes are red with weeping.

5

Let us, Lesbia, love each other dearly,
never giving a shit for all the gossip
spread about by old farts and busybodies.
Suns may set, yet they rise again next morning;
but, for humans, when our brief light has vanished,
one perpetual night extends before us.
So come, sweetheart, and give me first a thousand
kisses, then you might add a hundred others,
then a thousand, and then another hundred.
And then, once we have added thousands, millions,
we will stop and eradicate our total
so that envious people won’t begrudge us
when they learn we have kissed so many kisses.

13

You will dine well, dear Fabullus, at my house
a few days from now. Please come, if the gods are willing.
Just make sure to bring some delectable
food with you, and also a pretty woman,
some bottles of decent wine, and your fabled wit
to keep the four of us bubbling over with laughter.
If you bring all these with you, my charming friend,
you will dine well, for the purse of your friend Catullus
is full of cobwebs. In turn I’ll spoil you with friendship,
and as a treat I’ll offer you something precious:
a perfume that my girl has received from Venus.
One sniff, dear friend, and you’ll ask the immortal gods
to let your body be changed into one big nose.

Gaius Valerius Catullus (84–54 BCE) wrote some of the finest examples of lyric poetry from ancient Rome, despite his youth and early death. Catullus composed in the neoteric style during the high point of Roman literature and culture, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His poems were not only read and appreciated during his lifetime but influenced such respected Augustan-era poets as Ovid, Virgil, and Horace. Among his surviving works are twenty-five love poems addressed to a woman he called Lesbia.

Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen training. His many books include the bestselling Tao Te Ching, Gilgamesh, The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, The Second Book of the Tao, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Way of Forgiveness, and The First Christmas. He is also the coauthor of three of his wife Byron Katie’s bestselling books: Loving What Is, A Thousand Names for Joy, and A Mind at Home with Itself. You can read extensive excerpts from all his books on his website, www.stephenmitchellbooks.com.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2021