Catullus Poem 13 - "Catullus expects Fabullus to provide most of the meal"

OCR GCSE Latin Verse Literature 2025

canabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus

You will dine well at my house, my Fabullus, within a few days, if the gods are favourable to you,

si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam cenam, non sine candidia puella et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.

if you bring a good and substantial meal with you, as well as a pretty girl, wine, wit and all kinds of laughter.

haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster, cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli plenus sacculus est araenearum.

If you bring these, I declare, my charming fellow, you will dine well; for the money bag of your Catullus is full of cobwebs.

sed contra accipies meros amores seu quid suavius elegantiusve est:

But in return you will receive true love, or whatever is more pleasant or elegant:

nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque,

for I shall give you perfume which all the goddesses of love and the gods of desire have given to my girlfriend,

quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis, totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

and when you smell this, you will ask the gods, Fabullus, to make you all nose.