Latin text

Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,
nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo,
Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia
habebat ante et ultima Britannia?
Cinaede Romule, hoc videbis et feres?
Et ille nunc superbus et superfluens
perambulabit omnium cubilia,
ut albulus columbus aut Adoneus?
Cinaede Romule, hoc videbis et feres?
Es impudicus et vorax et aleo.
Eone nomine, imperator unice,
fuisti in ultima occidentis insula,
ut ista nostra diffututa mentula
ducenties comesset aut trecenties?
Quid est? Alit sinistra liberalitas.
Parum expatravit an parum elluatus est?
Paterna prima lancinata sunt bona,
secunda praeda Pontica, inde tertia
Hibera, quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus;
nunc Galliae timetur et Britanniae.
Quid hunc, malum, fovetis? aut quid hic potest
nisi uncta devorare patrimonia?
Eone nomine, urbis o potissimi
socer generque, perdidistis omnia?

English translation

Who can witness this, who can tolerate it,
except a shameless insatiable gambler,
that Mamurra should have what Gaul,
and Britain farthest once had?

Romulus, you sodomite, will you see and allow this?
You are a shameless insatiable gambler.
And shall he now, already overflowing,
make rounds of everyone's bed,
like a white cock-pigeon or an Adonis?

Romulus, you sodomite, will you see and allow this?
You are a shameless insatiable gambler.
Was it not this, "one and only general",
that took you to the farthest island of the West?
so that worn-out organ of yours, Mentula,
should squander twenty or thirty million?

What, then, is a perverted gift, if not this?
has he not acheived enough gluttony?
First his ancestral estate was torn into pieces,
next came his spoils from Pontius, and then
from the Iberus, which the gold-bearing Tagus knows well:
do the Gauls and Britons fear him?

Why cherish this scoundrel? What can he do,
but smear and devour inheritances?
Was it for this that you, o opulent father in law
and son in law, have laid all to waste?

English translation: C. Imperio.

Scansion

Iambic trimeter composed of three sets of a pair of iambs, s L s l | s L s l | s L s l , where the ictus falls on the second syllable of each foot, lending it a sound comparible to that of a train passing a join in the tracks, or a rock'n'roll beat.

General comments

One of Catullus' most infamous attacks of Caesar and his chief engineer and sometimes lover Mamurra . Here Mamurra is critisised as a social upstart who, through the agency of Caesar and Pompey, has risen up the social tree and is spending too much money. Caesar is critisised for allowing this to happen. This view is corroborated by Cicero's description of Mamurra. Catullus would have been especially affected by this since one of the provinces plundered for Mamurra's personal wealth was the one he originated from (Transalpine Gaul). His father, as a banker in Verona, would have felt the full force of raised taxes. In addition, Catullus' frustration and not being able to feather his own nest in his provincial posting may be conferred upon Mamurra as thinly disguised jealousy. The meter suggests that as pure invective it is more formal than plane hendecasyllables

Sources

• Catullus website Last modified July 2004. Written by Rudy Negenborn.
• Catullus translation and text.
• Whitakers Words: An awesome online dictionary.
• Fordyce, C. J. Catullus, a commentary. Oxford University Press, Great Britain, 1961
• Lee, Guy. Catullus, a new translation. Oxford University Press, Great Britain, 1990
• Lewis, C.T. Elementary Latin Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford, Great Britain, 1894
• Loeb Classical Library. Catullus translations by F.W. Cornish. Revised by G.P. Goold. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1913 (this edition 1995)
• Wiseman, T. P. Catullus and his World, a reappraisal. Cambridge University Press, Great Britain, 1985