Sic ego secretis possum bene vevere silvis
Qua nulla humauo sit via trita pede,
Tu mihi curarum requies, tu nocte vel atra
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi terba locis.
With thee for ever I in woods could rest,
Where never human foot the ground has pressed;
Thou from all shades the darkness canst exclude,
And from a desert banish solitude.
And yet our dear self is so wearisome to us that we can scarcely
support its conversation for an hour together. This is such an odd
temper of mind as Catullus expresses towards one of his mistresses,
whom we may suppose to have been of a very unsociable humour.
Odi et Amo, qua nam id faciam ratione requiris?
Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.
I hate, and yet I love thee too;
How can that be? I know not how;
Only that so it is I know,
And feel with torment that 'tis so.
It is a deplorable condition this, and drives a man sometimes to
pitiful shifts in seeking how to avoid himself.
The truth of the matter is, that neither he who is a fop in the
world is a fit man to be alone, nor he who has set his heart much
upon the world, though he has ever so much understanding; so that
solitude can be well fitted and set right but upon a very few
persons.
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