Catullus 15 in Latin & English: Commendo tibi me ac meos amores, Aureli
Channel: David Amster
Date: 2020-10-18

#catullus
#latinpoetry
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Catullus 15: Look, but don’t touch, Aurelius!

Commendo tibi me ac meos amores,
Aureli. veniam peto pudentem,
ut, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti,
quod castum expeteres et integellum,
conserves puerum mihi pudice,
non dico a populo — nihil veremur
istos, qui in platea modo huc modo illuc
in re praetereunt sua occupati — 
verum a te metuo tuoque pene
infesto pueris bonis malisque.
quem tu qua lubet, ut lubet moveto
quantum vis, ubi erit foris paratum:
hunc unum excipio, ut puto, pudenter.
quod si te mala mens furorque vecors
in tantam impulerit, sceleste, culpam,
ut nostrum insidiis caput lacessas,
a tum te miserum malique fati!
quem attractis pedibus patente porta
percurrent raphanique mugilesque.


I entrust to you myself and my beloved,
Aurelius. I ask a favor, a modest one:
if you have desired anything with all your heart,
that you wished remain pure and unharmed,
you would, for my sake, keep the young man virtuously,
I don’t mean from the rabble—I fear nothing 
from them, who in the street, now here, now there, 
pass by occupied in their own affairs—
truly it’s you I dread and your tool
dangerous to lads, both good and bad. 
Go ahead, employ it wherever you like, 
as you like, as much as you want, 
whenever it’s outdoors ready for action. 
This one alone I exclude, as I reckon, modestly.
Since if bad judgement and mad passion
compel you, rogue, to such transgression 
that you would attack us with your treachery,
ah, then how miserable and ill-fated you’ll be! 
Your feet bound, wide open the gate 
radishes and mullets shall penetrate!

Notes:

Aurelius: the person entrusted with a message to his mistress Clodia in Carmen 11, with the same issue of infidelity/adultery. Both poems begin pleasantly, but end quite differently! 

Meos amores: beloved, referring here, most likely, to Juventius, whom Catullus addresses in several other poems (21, 23, 24, 48, 81, 99).

Pudentem, pudice, pudenter: Catullus ironically repeats words referring to shame and modesty in a poem whose language is quite “shameful.”

Puer: a boy or a young man; the emperor Augustus was referred to as “puer” when he was 19. 

Radishes and mullets (a kind of fish): echoing the comic playwright 
Aristophanes’ description of what happens to an adulterer (Clouds line 1083), suggesting Catullus is serious, but also joking. It’s interesting too that the relationship was such that he viewed a violation as adultery. 

Alliteration: note Catullus’ brilliant use of repetition of sound
coMMendo tibi Me ac Meos aMores
Peto Pudentem
Puerum mihi Pudice
excipPio ut Puto, Pudenter
Pedibus Patente Porta Percurrent raPhanique

Translation by DWA, 10/18/20, Fez