. 5

Trust the people; avails not aught to fear them,
Such, who hourly within the streets repassing,
Run, good souls, on a busy quest or idle.

You, you only the free, the felon-hearted,
Fright me, prodigal you of every virtue. 10

Well, let luxury run her heady riot,
Love flow over; enough abroad to sate thee:
This one trespass--a tiny boon--presume not.

But should impious heat or humour headstrong
Drive thee wilfully, wretch, to such profaning, 15
In one folly to dare a double outrage:

Ah what misery thine; what angry fortune!
Heels drawn tight to the stretch shall open inward
Lodgment easy to mullet and to radish.

XVI.

I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you,
Soft Aurelius, e'en as easy Furius.
You that lightly a saucy verse resenting,
Misconceit me, sophisticate me wanton.

Know, pure chastity rules the godly poet, 5
Rules not poesy, needs not e'er to rule it;
Charms some verse with a witty grace delightful?
'Tis voluptuous, impudent, a wanton.

It shall kindle an icy thought to courage,
Not boy-fancies alone, but every frozen 10
Flank immovable, all amort to pleasure.

You my kisses, a million happy kisses,
Musing, read me a silky thrall to softness?
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you.

XVII.

1.

Kind Colonia, fain upon bridge more lengthy to gambol,
And quite ready to dance amain, fearing only the rotten
Legs too crazily steadied on planks of old resurrections,
Lest it plunge to the deep morass, there supinely to welter;
So surprise thee a sumptuous bridge thy fancy to pleasure, 5
Passive under a Salian god's most lusty procession;
This rare favour, a laugh for all time, Colonia, grant me.

In my township a citizen lives: Catullus adjures thee
Headlong into the mire below topsy-turvy to drown him.
Only, where the superfluent lake, the spongy putrescence, 10
Sinks most murkily flushed, descends most profoundly the bottom.

Such a ninny, a fool is he; witless even as any
Two years' urchin, across papa's elbow drowsily swaying.

2.

For though wed to a maiden in spring-tide youthfully budding,
Maiden crisp as a petulant kid,