This morning

This morning I listened to translations of Catullus and congratulated myself on my fortnight's self restraint. "What a foulmouthed poisonous hole he was" I thought, how fortunate that I am able to contain my falcer and not be remembered that way, immortalising peers in slander.

O greatest of thieves skulking about the bathouses,
The father, Vibennius, and Vibennius Junior, the catamite son
(For dad is the one with the more sordid thieving hand,
While sonny boy is busy peddling his voracious fundament):
Why don't you both get the hell out of here and go to the devil?
Since the thieveries of the father are common knowledge
And you, son, couldn't sell that hairy ass of yours for a penny.

- Catullus

Otho’s head is quite tiny,
and it’s owner’s legs loutishly unclean,
soft and delicate is Libo’s farting:
if not with all that, then let me displease you
with Sufficio, old age renewed...

- Catullus

Wonder not, Rufus, why none of the opposite sex
wishes to place her dainty thighs beneath you,
not even if you undermine her virtue with gifts of choice
silk or the enticement of a pellucid gem.
You are being hurt by an ugly rumour which asserts
that beneath your armpits dwells a ferocious goat.
This they fear, and no wonder; for it's a right rank
beast that no pretty girl will go to bed with.
So either get rid of this painful affront to the nostrils
or cease to wonder why the ladies flee.

- Catullus

Mentula is an adulterer. Why certainly he is. How could he be anything
else with a name such as his. It is as natural as for a pot to gather vegetables.

- Catullus