Driven across many nations (101)- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

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Gaius Valerius Catullus

Very little is objectively known of the life of Gaius Valerius Catullus....
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Driven across many nations (101)
by Gaius Valerius Catullus translated by Charles Martin

Driven across many nations, across many oceans, I am here, my brother, for this final parting, to offer at last those gifts which the dead are given and to speak in vain to your unspeaking ashes, since bitter fortune forbids you to hear me or answer, O my wretched brother, so abruptly taken! But now I must celebrate grief with funeral tributes offered the dead in the ancient way of the fathers; accept these presents, wet with my brotherly tears, and now & forever, my brother, hail & farewell.

From The Poems of Catullus, translated by Charles Martin and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. © 1989 by Charles Martin. Used with permission. All rights reserved.