Any pupil of Romance lyric poetry will separate you that Catullus ’ poem get pretty raunchy , obsessed with genital organ , ejaculate , and sex in general . But one of his poems is so vulgar that an uncensored advanced English displacement was n’t issue until the twentieth 100 .
The text below include a interlingual rendition of the poem which is NSFW and include sexually violent language .
Catullus ’ Carmen 16 , sometimes referred to by its first line , “ Paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo , ” is only of several poems addressed to two men : Marcus Furius Bibaculus ( who had an occasion with Catullus ’ untested manlike lover Juventius ) and Marcus Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus . In most of his verse form address to Furius and Aurelius , Catullus heaps abuse onto his cohorts , and in this particular one , he threaten them with explicit rape :
Paedicabo self vos et irrumabo , Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi , qui me X versiculis meis putastis , quod sunt molliculi , parum pudicum . Nam castum esse decet pium poetamipsum , versiculos nihil necesse est , qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem , si sunt molliculi ac parum pudiciet quod pruriatincitare possunt , non dico pueris , sed his pilosis , qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos . Vos quod milia multa basiorumlegistis , male me marem putatis?Paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo .
FromWikipedia , here ’s a rather NSFW version :
I will sodomise you and face - fuck you , bottom Aurelius and catamite Furius , you who think , because my poemsare sensitive , that I have no shame . For it ’s proper for a devoted poet to be moralhimself , [ but ] in no way is it necessary for his poem . In point of fact , these have wit and charm , if they are sensitive and a little shameless , and can come alive an itch , and I do n’t stand for in boys , but in those haired old menwho ca n’t get it up . Because you ’ve interpret my countless kisses , you recall less of me as a man?I will bugger you and face - shag you .
And here ’s a more playful version release by Carl Sesar in 1974 :
Up your ass and in your mouthAurelius , you too , Furius , you cocksuckers , calling me dirt because my poemshave naughty naughty words in them . Just the poet ’s let to be a male child scoutfellas , not his goddamn poems . Anyway look , they ’ve get wit , sass , and sure they ’re salacious and libidinous , and can get somebody pretty hard - up too , I mean not just young kid , but you hairy guyswho can barely get your stiff asses going , so just because you interpret about a lot of kissesyou want to put something nasty on me as a man?Fuck you , up your screw and in your mouth .
Now certainly English - speaking people who could read Latin knew what was go on in the poem , and people would certainly transform it in camera . ( And it was read into other languages . ) But when the poem was translated — or perhaps more accurately adapt — into English for publishing , the transcriber avoided literally translating certain parts of the verse form . In his 1973 essay on the poem , University of Nebraska - Lincoln classic prof Thomas Nelson Winter notes , “ Until latterly , English as candid as the Latin could never be print . ”
Often the lines that were considered the most loathsome — the first two lines and the repeated final line — were left out of English translation or replace with the original Latin . Even many mid-20th century translations of the verse form were extraordinarily overmodest with the first two contrast ; F. A. Wright ’s translation began , “ I ’ll show you I ’m a man , ” while Jack Lindsay ’s take up with “ Aurelius down , you ’ll knuckle under!/ Furius up ! Admit your botch ! ”
So why is this especial poem so cruddy ? Well , in the grand dodge of Latin poetry ( or even Catullus ) , it ’s not that bad . But the reason that Catullus used this particular language , language of sexual insight , seems to be due to some challenge to Catullus ’ maleness . But Winter suggests that at the time it was write , Catullus ’ language would n’t have been nearly as shocking as it was to later , English - talk reader :
In the good sense that this is the normal language of those to whom he directs the verse form , it is not obscene . Obscenity , like stunner , is in the eyes of the beholder .
The implication is that it ’s not the writer , but the readers , who made the verse form so crude .
“ Catullus Purified : A Brief History of Carmen 16”[University of Nebraska - Lincoln viaalgrenion ]
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