Catullus 5  

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Catullus 5 is a passionate and perhaps the most famous poem by Catullus. The poem encourages lovers to scorn the snide comments of others, and to live only for each other, since life is all too brief and death brings on a night of perpetual sleep. Over the centuries, this poem has been translated and imitated many times; its sentiments seem timeless.

The meter of this poem is hendecasyllabic, a common form in Catullus' poetry.

17th Century translations

A rhyming translation was written in 1601 by the 17th century English composer, poet and physician Thomas Campion, which adds the word "sweetest"

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love;

And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,

Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive

Into their west, and straight again revive,

But soon as once is set our little light,

Then must we sleep one ever-during night.

Soon thereafter, Sir Walter Raleigh included the following verses in his The Historie of the World, which he wrote while imprisoned in the Tower of London

The Sunne may set and rise

But we contrariwise

Sleepe after our short light

One everlasting night.

A free-verse translation of the following Latin text:

Let us live, my Lesbia, and love.

As for all the rumors of those stern old men,

Let us value them at a mere penny.

Suns may set and yet rise again, but

Us, with our brief light, can set but once.

The night which falls is one never-ending sleep.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred.

Then, another thousand, and a second hundred.

Then, yet another thousand, and a hundred.

Then, when we have counted up many thousands,

Let us shake the abacus, so that no one may know the number,

And become jealous when they see

How many kisses we have shared.

Latin text

File:Catullus, Canto V.ogg

Listen to Catullus V

Connotations

• Lines 2-3

This is a reference to the gossip going around the Roman Senate, as it was believed that Catullus was having an affair with a senator's wife, known as Claudia Pulchra Tercia. This is also thought to be the woman Lesbia in his poetry. Catullus is urging Clodia to disregard what people are saying about them, so she can spend more time with him.

Poetic effects

• Line 5-6

The position of lux - light, and nox - night right next to each other serve to emphasise his two comparisons. Symbolically, the "perpetual night" represents death and the "brief light" represents life.

Allusions in modern culture

A modern version of this poem is sung in the 1998 French film Jeanne et le garçon formidable {Jeanne and the Perfect Guy} starring Virginie Ledoyen and Mathieu Demy.

This poem is referenced in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, according to annotator Alfred Appel Jr.'s annotation.

The line nox est una dormienda is a recurring theme in Anthony Burgess's novel The Kingdom of the Wicked.

Nox Dormienda is the name of a novel by Kelli Stanley.

The line nox est perpetua una dormienda is quoted in the 'Present Day' chapter of Virginia Woolf's The Years.

Mike Engleby translates this poem as part of his entrance exam to Chatfield in Sebastian Faulks' novel Engleby.