[Desine]1 de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri
    aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.
Omnia sunt ingrata, nihil fecisse benigne
    immo etiam taedet, taedet obestque magis;
ut mihi, quem nemo gravius nec acerbius urget,
    quam modo qui me unum atque unicum amicum habuit.2

About the headline (FAQ)

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Confirmed with Catullus Tibullus and Pervigilium Veneris, London: William Heinemann, 1928, page 152.

¹ Orff: "O mea Lesbia! Desine"
² Orff adds

Omnia sunt ingrata.
Applaudunt senes dicentes:
Senes
Placet, placet, placet,
optime, optime, optime.

Text Authorship:

• by Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84 BCE - 54 BCE), no title, appears in Carmina, no. 73 [author's text checked 2 times against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Carl Orff (1895 - 1982), "[VII]. O mea Lesbia!", 1940-43, published 1943 [ chorus and orchestra ], from cantata Catulli Carmina, no. 8 [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• SPA Spanish (Español) (Saúl Botero Restrepo) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Grant Hicks [Guest Editor] , Saúl Botero Restrepo

This text was added to the website: 2015-10-07
Line count: 6
Word count: 44