1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

10, 11, 12, 13, 14a, 14b, 15, 16, 17

Poem 1:  Whom do I gift my smart new booklet to?

Cui dono lepidum nouum libellum

arida modo pumice expolitum?

Corneli, tibi: namque tu solebas

meas esse aliquid putare nugas

iam tum, cum ausus es unus Italorum

omne aeuum tribus explicare cartis

doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis.

quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli

qualecumque; quod, patrona virgo

plus uno maneat perenne saeclo.

Whom do I gift my smart new booklet to,

just recently polished with arid pumice-stone?

To you, Cornelius – because you use

to think my trivia was something special,

even then when, alone of Italians, you dared                   5

to set forth every age in three book-rolls

(learned – Jupiter! – and laborious).

So have it, this little thing of a book,

whatever its value; and, Patroness Virgin,

let it last for more than a single lifetime!                         10

Notes
This whimsical dedicatory poem is to the writer Cornelius Nepos. He was a native of Cisalpine Gaul (like Catullus), wrote a world history ‘in three book-rolls’ called Chronica, and was a supporter of the Neoterics. The ‘Patroness Virgin’ is probably Erato, Muse of Lyric and Erotic Poetry. The scope of the booklet (libellus) Catullus was dedicating is unclear.

The Latin metre is hendecasyllables; the English metre is (flexible) iambic pentameters.