Chapter XXXVII: To the Frequenters of a Low Tavern

Salacious Tavern and ye taverner-host,
From Pileate Brothers the ninth pile-post,
D'ye claim, you only of the mentule boast,
D'ye claim alone what damsels be the best
To swive: as he-goats holding all the rest? 5
Is't when like boobies sit ye incontinent here,
One or two hundred, deem ye that I fear
Two hundred ---- at one brunt?
Ay, think so, natheless all your tavern-front
With many a scorpion I will over-write. 10
For that my damsel, fro' my breast took flight,
By me so lovèd, as shall loved be none,
Wherefor so mighty wars were waged and won,
Does sit in public here. Ye fain, rich wights,
All woo her: thither too (the chief of slights!) 15
All pitiful knaves and by-street wenchers fare,
And thou, (than any worse), with hanging hair,
In coney-breeding Celtiberia bred,
Egnatius! bonnified by beard full-fed,
And teeth with Spanish urine polishèd. 20

Tavern of lust and you its tippling crowd, (at ninth pile sign-post from the Cap-donned Brothers) think ye that ye alone have mentules, that 'tis allowed to you alone to touzle whatever may be feminine, and to deem all other men mere goats? But, because ye sit, a row of fools numbering one hundred or haply two hundred, do ye think I dare not irrumate your entire two hundred--loungers!--at once! Think it! but I'll scrawl all over the front of your tavern with scorpion-words. For my girl, who has fled from my embrace (she whom I loved as ne'er a maid shall be beloved--for whom I fought fierce fights) has seated herself here. All ye, both honest men and rich, and also, (O cursed shame) all ye paltry back-slum fornicators, are making hot love to her; and thou above all, one of the hairy-visaged sons of coney-caverned Celtiberia, Egnatius, whose quality is stamped by dense-grown beard, and teeth with Spanish urine scrubbed.

XXXVIII.

Malest, Cornifici, tuo Catullo,
Malest, me hercule, et est laboriose,
Et magis magis in dies et horas.
Quem tu, quod minimum facillimumquest,
Qua solatus es adlocutione? 5
Irascor tibi. sic meos amores?
Paulum quid lubet adlocutionis,
Maestius lacrimis Simonideis.