Varus drags me into his affairs
out of the Forum, where I-m seen idling:
to a little whore I immediately saw,
not very inelegant, not unattractive,
who, when we came there, met us
with varied chatter, including, how might
Bithynia stand now, what-s it like, and where
might the benefit have been to me in cash.
I told her what-s true, nothing at all,
while neither the praetors nor their aides,
return any the richer, especially since
our Praetor, Memmius, the bugger,
cared not a jot for his followers.
-But surely,- they said, you could have bought
slaves they say are made for the litter there.-
I, so the girl might take me to be wealthy,
said -no, for me things weren-t so bad,
that coming across one bad province,
I couldn-t buy eight good men.-
But I-d no one, neither here nor there,
who might even raise to his shoulder
the shattered foot of an old couch.
At this she, like the shameless thing she was, said
-I beg you, my dear Catullus, for the loan of them,
just for a while: I-d like to be carried
to Serap-s temple.- -Wait- I said to the girl,
-what I just said was mine, isn-t actually in
my possession: my friend Cinna, that-s Gaius,
purchased the thing for himself.
Whether they-re his or mine, what difference to me?
I use them just as well as if I-d bought them myself.
But you are quite tasteless, and annoying,
you with whom no inexactness is allowed.-