February is for Lovers

I'm in a romantic mood today, so I'm going to share a latin poem by Catullus which is as romantic as it is enduring.

vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum seueriorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit, ,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.


Let us live, my Lesbia, and love,
and value at one farthing
all the talk of crabbed old men.
Suns may set and rise again.
For us, when the short light has once set,
remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet thousand, then a hundred.
Then, when we have made up many thousands,
we will confuse our counting, that we may not know the reckoning,
nor any malicious person blight them with evil eye,