Catullus V
Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love,
and all the talk of the stern old men,
may it be worth a penny!
Suns may set, and suns may rise again:
but when our brief light has set,
night is one long everlasting sleep.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
then another thousand, and then another hundred,
and, when we've counted up the many thousands,
let us confuse them so as not to know them all,
so that no enemy may cast an evil eye,
when he finds out that there were so many kisses.
Catullus VII
You ask how many of your kisses, Lesbia, are
enough for me and more than enough. As great as
is the number of the Libyan sand that lies on
silphium-bearing Cyrene, between the oracle of
sultry Jove and the sacred Tomb of old Battus; or
as many as are the stars, when night is silent,
that see the loves of men, to kiss you with so many
kisses, Lesbia, is enough and more than enough for
your mad Catullus; kisses, which neither curious
eyes shall count up nor an evil tongue bewitch.
