The Poems and Fragments of Catullus
or the hendecasyllables immediately preceding,
CATULLUS.
Tickell , Theristes or the Lordling
For a spirited, though coarse, version of this poem, see Cotton's Poems, p. 608, ed. 1689.
Browning , Flight of the Duchess
move quickly over the road. So Shakespeare:
2nd Part of Henry IV. , Act i. sc. 1.
In the metre of this poem Catullus observes the following general type -
Troilus and Cressida , Act iv. sc. 5.
abide as, I think, in Spenser's Faerie Queene , vi. 2, 19.
Midsummer Night's Dream , iii. 2.
I have combined thou with your uestras potuisti
bent as they move rapidly through the water.
A verse seems to have been lost here, which I have thus supplied.
- Pope , Epitaph on the children of Lord Digby.
LXII. 39-61.
Look in a garden croft, when a flower privily growing, &c.
Opinion. Look how a flower that close in closes grows,
Hid from rude cattle, bruised with no ploughs,
Which th' air doth stroke, sun strengthen, showers shoot higher,
It many youths and many maids desire;
The same, when cropt by cruel hand 'tis wither'd,
No youths at all, no maidens have desired;
So a virgin while untouch'd she doth remain
Is dear to hers; but when with body's stain
Her chaster flower is lost, she leaves to appear
Or sweet to young men or to maidens dear.
Truth. Virgins, O Virgins, to sweet Hymen yield,
For as a lone vine in a naked field
Never extols her branches, never bears
Ripe grapes, but with a headlong heaviness wears
Her tender body, and her highest sprout
Is quickly levell'd with her fading root;
By whom no husbandmen, no youths will dwell;
But if by fortune she be married well,
To the elm her husband, many husbandmen
And many youths inhabit by her then;
So whilst a virgin doth untouch'd abide,
All unmanur'd she grows old with her pride;
But when to equal wedlock, in fit time,
Her fortune and endeavour lets her climb,
Dear to her love and parents she is held.
Virgins, O Virgins, to sweet Hymen yield.