GAI VALERI CATVLLI LIBER nunc ipsum id doleo, quod esurire 10 tme me puer et sitire discet. quare desine, dum licet pudico, ne finem facias, sed irrumatus. XXII Svrrenvs iste, Vare, quem probe nosti, homost venustus et dicax et urbanus, idemque longe plurimos facit versus. puto esse ego illi milia aut decem aut plura perscripta, nec sic ut fit in palimpsestos * relata: chartae regiae, novi libri; novi umbilici, lora rubra, membranae, derecta plumbo, et pumice omnia aequata. haec cum legas tu, bellus ille et urbanus Suffenus unus caprimulgus aut fossor 10 rursus videtur :“tantum abhiorret ac mutat. hoc quid putemus esse? qui modo scurra aut siquid hae re tritius* videbatur, idem infacetost infacetior rure, simul poemata attigit ; neque idem umquam aequest beatus ac poema cum seribit : tam gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratury nimirum idem omnes fallimur, nequest quisquam quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum ossis,/ suus cuique attributus est error: 20 Gea non videmus manticae quod in tergost. 1 palimpsesto cod. “can hardly be Latin,” Mf. but referre in palimpseston, the usual term, does not necessarily exclude in palimpsesto relata, the finished act. Cf. XXVI. 6. 2 tristius of codd. is corrupt. Other emendations are tersius, scitius. 26THE POEMS OF CATULLUS XXII as it is, what annoys me is that my lad will learn how to be hungry and thirsty. Stop, then, while you can do so unharmed, or you will have to make an end in very different plight. XXII Tuat Suffenus, Varus, whom you know very well, is a charming fellow, and has wit and good manners. He also makes many more verses than any one else. I suppose he has got some ten thousand or even more written out in full, and not, as is often done, put down on old scraps; imperial paper, new rolls, new bosses, red ties, parchment wrappers ;? all ruled with lead and smoothed with pumice. When you come to read these, the fashionable well-bred Suffenus I spoke of seems to be nothing but any goatherd or ditcher, to look at him again; so absurd? and changed he is. How are we to account for this? The same man who was just now a dinner-table wit or something (if such there be) even more practised, is more clumsy than the clumsy country, whenever he touches poetry; and at the same time he is never so happy as when he is writing a poem, he delights in himself and admires himself so much. True enough, we all are under the same delusion, and there is no one whom you may not see to be a Suffenus in one thing or another. Everybody has his own delusion assigned to him: but we do not see that part of the bag which hangs on our back. 1 Or (lora rubra membranae) “red ties for the wrapper” ; or (novi umbilici et lora, rubra membrana P.) “ new bosses and ties, red parchment wrapper.” 2 abhorret = absurdus est M. (doubtfully), so abhorrens, “ un- couth,” “out of date.” Liv. xxv1I. 37, &c. 27