Lament outside the door | Doorbolts, hey doorbolts, I greet you gladly

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by Titus Maccius Plautus (250 BCE - 184 BCE)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Paraclausithyrum

Language: Latin

Our translations: ENG

Pessuli, heus, pessuli, vos saluto lubens,
vos amo, vos volo, vos peto atque obsecro:
gerite amanti mihi morem, amoenissumi,
fite causa mea ludii barbari.

Sussilite, obsecro, et mittite istanc foras,
quae mihi misero amanti ebibit sanguinem.
Hoc vide, ut dormiunt pessuli pessumi,
nec mea gratia commovent se ocius!

Text Authorship:

by Titus Maccius Plautus (250 BCE - 184 BCE), appears in Curiculio, first published 147-154 [author's text not yet checked 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 Jan Novák (1921 - 1984), "Paraclausithyrum", from Cantica latina, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 8
Word count: 48

Lament outside the door

Language: English after the Latin

Doorbolts, hey doorbolts, I greet you gladly,
I love you, I want you, I beg and implore you:
be most agreeable and indulge me in love,
become, for my sake, dancers on the stage.

Leap up, I pray, and send her outdoors 
who drains my blood from me, miserable in love.
Look at this, how these wicked bolts are asleep,
and they do not bestir themselves any faster for my sake.

Note for stanza 1, line 4, "on the stage": literally "foreign"; stage performers, including dancers, in the early Roman theater were often Etruscans.

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 Titus Maccius Plautus (250 BCE - 184 BCE), appears in Curiculio, first published 147-154
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-09-25
Line count: 8
Word count: 71