LI

That man seems to me to be a god

Or, forgive me, the gods’ superior,

As he sits across from you and watches you

Endlessly, and hears

You sweetly laughing, which snatches every sense

From me, and I am lost: For as soon as I saw you,

Lesbia, nothing … is left for me [corruption in text]

But my tongue freezes, a gentle flame flows down

Under my limbs and my ears ring with their own sound.

Both my eyes are blinded by night.

Leisure, Catullus, is bad for you:

At leisure you are restless, too ill at ease.

Leisure has before now destroyed kings

And their wealthy cities.