Gaius Valerius Catullus (1st century BC) was a Roman poet of the Republican era. The preserved works of Catullus are 116 poems, in which lyrical poems, love poems, others addressed to friends or enemies, ingenious improvisations, anecdotes, satires and...
a poem that nobody dared to translate in 20 centuries
The poem in question is Carmen 16 :written in hendecasyllables (11 syllables) and as a response to the criticism of Furio and Aurelio that they considered his poetry very soft, typical of a sissy . This poem was considered so obscene that the English translation was not published until the 20th century and its first line – Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo – was considered as «one of the dirtiest expressions ever written in any language «.
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
Nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, verses nihil necesse est;
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici,
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, thirst for his pilosis
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
Vos, quod milia fine basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.
The first two lines go something like this «I'll fuck you in the ass and you'll suck me off, fagot Aurelius and sodomite Furius. The rest is somewhat “lighter”…
that because of my verses, as they are lascivious, you have considered me shameless.
Although it is appropriate that the honorable poet
be personally chaste;
it is not necessary that his verses be so ,
which, in short, have salt and grace
if they are lascivious and shameless
and can cause itching, I don't say to the boys,
but to those hairy old men who can't move their asses.
Do you, because you've read thousands of kisses,
consider me not very macho?
I'll fuck you up the ass and you'll suck it.