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

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

Poem 13:  Total Nose

Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me

paucis, si tibi di fauent, diebus,

si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam

cenam, non sine candida puella

et uino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.

haec si, inquam, attuleris, uenuste noster,

cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli

plenus sacculus est aranearum.

sed contra accipies meros amores

seu quid suauius elegantiusue est:

nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae

donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque,

quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis,

totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

Fabullus mine, you’ll dine well at my place

in a few days – if the gods favour you,

if you deliver an excellent and expansive

meal, and you’re not without a comely girl,

and wine, and salt, and loads of loud laughter.                5

You’ll dine well, I insist, our glamour boy –

if you deliver these things – for the purse

of your Catullus is full of spiders’ webs!

But, in return, you’ll receive unalloyed love

(or whatever’s sweeter and more refined),                    10

because I’ll give you a perfume which the Cupids

and Venuses presented to my girl.

Fabullus, when you get a whiff of this,

you’ll beg the gods to make you Total Nose!

Notes
A good ‘poor poet’ story within a typical dinner invitation piece. Fabullus is unknown. It has been suggested that the perfume that Catullus is going to give Fabullus are Lesbia’s vaginal secretions. Hence there would be phallic significance in being a ‘Total Nose’.

The Latin metre is hendecasyllables; the English metre is iambic pentameters.