Kissing Your Honey Sweet Eyes: Catullus
Sings to His Boyfriend Juventius
|
Name: Catullus Date: 84 – 54 BCE Region: Verona / Cisalpine Gaul [modern northern
Italy] Citation: Poem 48 |
Juventius,
If I could kiss your honey
sweet eyes,
I would kiss them three
hundred thousand times.
I wouldn’t be satisfied
If our kisses were more
plentiful
Than the waves of wheat in
a field.
Kissing
Your Honey Sweet Eyes: Catullus Sings to His Boyfriend Juventius
Mellitos oculos tuos, Juventi,
si
quis me sinat usque basiare,
usque
ad milia basiem trecenta
nec
mi umquam videar satur futurus,
non
si densior aridis aristis
sit
nostrae seges osculationis.
Catullus [Gaius Valerius Catullus; 84 – 54 BCE, modern Italy] was a Roman statesman born in Verona [modern Italy] who lived during the tumultuous last days of the Roman Republic. His poetry offers rare insight into the lives of people who lived during his time period. Like Propertius and Tibullus, Catullus used a pseudonym for the objects of his attention; many of his love poems were addressed to either “Lesbia” or “Juventius.”
