Three Latin Poems by Catullus

Translations © by Grant Hicks

Song Cycle by Ronald A. Beckett

View original-language texts alone: Three Latin Poems by Catullus

1. I hate and I love
 (Sung text)
Language: Latin 
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

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by Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84 BCE - 54 BCE)
1. I hate and I love
Language: English 
I hate and I love. Why should that be, you may ask?
I don't know, but I feel it happening and it torments me.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Latin to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
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Translations of titles:
"I hate and I love" = "I hate and I love"
"Odi et amo" = "I hate and I love"



This text was added to the website: 2025-07-01
Line count: 2
Word count: 24

Translation © by Grant Hicks
2. Atalanta picks up the apples
 (Sung text)
Language: Latin 
 ... 
...
tam gratum est mihi quam ferunt puellae,
pernici aureolum fuisse malum,
quod zonam soluit diu ligitam.

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Note: some text has been lost from the original as indicated by "[...]".

by Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84 BCE - 54 BCE)
2. Atalanta picks up the apples
Language: English 
[ ... ]
[...]
I find it as pleasing as, they say,
the fleet-footed maiden found the golden apple,
which loosed her long-bound girdle.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Latin to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: 

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Translations of titles:
"Atalanta picks up the apples" = "Atalanta picks up the apples"
"Passer" = "Sparrow"
"Passer, deliciae meae puellae " = "Sparrow, my maiden's delight"

Note for line 1: "my maiden" is the woman referred to in other poems as Lesbia, with whom Catullus was at first infatuated and later disillusioned (see the poem Odi et amo, "I hate and I love"). She was identified as "Clodia" by the second-century author Apuleius, and modern scholars generally agree that she was Clodia Metelli, daughter of the patrician Appius Claudius Pulcher.
Note for line 13: the "fleet-footed maiden" is Atalanta, who according to myth ran so swiftly that no man could outrun her. She vowed that she would marry only a suitor who could best her in a footrace, and Hippomenes did just that by distracting her during their race using golden apples that the goddess Aphrodite had given him.


This text was added to the website: 2025-09-02
Line count: 14
Word count: 98

Translation © by Grant Hicks
3. To Diana
 (Sung text)
Language: Latin 
 ... 

O Latonia, maximi
magna progenies Jovis,
quam mater prope Deliam
deposivit olivam,

montium domina ut fores
silvarumque virentium
saltuumque reconditorum
amniumque sonantum.

Dianae sumus in fide
puellae et pueri integri:
dianam pueri integri
puellaeque canamus.

 ...

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by Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84 BCE - 54 BCE)
3. To Diana
Language: English 
[ ... ]

O Latonia, great daughter
of the supreme Jove,
delivered by your mother
near the Delian olive tree,

to make you mistress of the mountains 
and of the green forests
and of the hidden glades
and of the roaring rivers.

We are pure sons and daughters 
under Diana's protection:
We, the pure sons and daughters,
sing of Diana.

[ ... ]

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Latin to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: 

Based on:

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Translations of titles:
"Dianae sumus in fide" = "We are under Diana's protection"
"To Diana" = "To Diana"

Note for stanza 2, line 1, word 2: "Latonia", meaning "belonging to Latona", refers to Diana as the daughter of Latona, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Leto.
Note for stanza 2, line 4, word 3: "Delian" refers to the island of Delos, considered to have been Diana's birthplace.
Note for stanza 4, line 1, word 6: "Lucina" was an epithet of Juno as well as Diana in their aspect as goddesses of childbirth.
Note for stanza 4, line 3, word 5: "Trivia", from "trivium", literally a place where three roads meet, became an epithet of deities whose shrines were set up in such places, and particularly of Diana.


This text was added to the website: 2025-07-14
Line count: 24
Word count: 122

Translation © by Grant Hicks