toward him, and tasted for the first time the bitter aloes she had poured down her lovers' throats through long years. And she grew tender toward him, sincerely — after what? She had never supposed that he would deal harshly with her. And she coaxed him, and reminded him. But his heart had been shut against her, and his dignity had gained the upper hand. And he thrust her from him:

Be gone, and wanton with your lovers — three hundred, are they? With them all, then. And do not expect the return of the love he once bore you: that love has perished, through a fault of yours, like a flower at the end of spring, struck by the plow, that withered and died.

And if ever her phantom comes again to shade your imagination, and from her body a memory returns to tease you, then master the trial, and depart from the mother of the world, and from the homeland — to the East.

*

And to Rome once more.

What has become of Lesbia in your absence? Just as you knew her, Catullus — and do not despair: for Lesbia, your Lesbia, whom you loved beyond your own self, lies in the streets and the alleys, stripping the passersby of what chastity remains to them.

You have forgotten her? Yes — but we are doubters, and your sickness is our proof. And alas for your lamp: Lesbia lit it, and it illumined her, and crowned all the darknesses of her name with a halo — then she put it out.

And on the day they carried your body forth before its time — in what bedchamber, one wonders, was she wallowing?

His beloved? And what would he say, were they to answer: who is the robber, and who the robbed?

*

Come to your senses, O wretched Catullus, and admit defeat.

Come to your senses — have you not truly had enough! The sun that lit a part of your past has set. How long will you torture yourself, and until when remain her slave? Withdraw from the field — withdraw.

An adventure? And when was love ever free of adventures? Break loose from your captivity, for the hour of your deliverance has come, and you have lain numbed too long.

Have you not now come to know yourself — and

so come to know her? Yes: none gave birth to her but a lioness in the deserts of Libya, or a savage she-demon. Is that a woman, who mocks the broken of heart the morning she glimpses the blood dripping?

Have you not come to know woman, in coming to know her? And woman's promises: words written on the deep and on running water.

Indeed. Farewell, then, Lesbia. Catullus loves you no longer, nor will he entreat you to grant what you withhold. And you will be sorry one day, when you find no one to entreat you. Who will visit you, and who will praise your beauty? Whom will you greet, and by whose name will you be called? Whom will you kiss, and whose lips will you crush?

... If that is what troubles you, Catullus, then be not wretched: the feet of the visitors jostle one another, the lips are in their prime, and the body is forever light: covered a moment, then uncovered, and the darkness is routed.

And by God, O gods, if you are living and immortal, accepting sacrifices from her and raising up to yourselves the incense we offer: deliver him from his deadly plague, and let Lesbia be blotted from his memory. You turned away from all his supplications in the days when his whole care was a glance from Lesbia and a smile; give ear to him now, when he has forsworn his gilded idol.

*

And he returned to his poetry — but to compose for weddings and festivals.

And he returned to his companions, whom only yesterday he had pelted with his most violent epithets, out of jealousy of them for robbing him of his girl. They had met what he had met: and the stings made them one.