Leave off hoping to deserve well of anyone in any way

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by Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84 BCE - 54 BCE)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle...

Language: Latin

Our translations: ENG SPA

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[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

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• C. Orff

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

Leave off hoping to deserve well of...

Language: English after the Latin

Choose for Diff

[Leave off]¹ hoping to deserve well of anyone in any way 
    or thinking that anyone can be made grateful.
Everything is fruitless; to have acted kindly is nothing —
    on the contrary, it is tiresome, tiresome or rather a nuisance;
as it is to me, whom nobody taxes more severely or bitterly
    than he who only recently considered me his one and only friend.

Available sung text translations: ← What is this?

• C. Orff

About the headline (FAQ)

View text without footnotes

Translations of titles:
"[VII]. O mea Lesbia!" = "[VII]. O my Lesbia!"

¹ Orff: "O my Lesbia! Leave off"
² Orff adds

Everything is fruitless.
The old men applaud, saying:
Old men
Bravo, bravo, bravo,
very good, very good, very good.

Text Authorship:

Translation from Latin to English copyright © 2026 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: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in Latin by Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84 BCE - 54 BCE), no title, appears in Carmina, no. 73
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-08
Line count: 6
Word count: 65