Latin 38 stories ch 28

[Summer]

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus; omnesque rumores senum graviorum aestimemus unius assis. Soles occidere et redire possunt; ubi semel occidit haec brevissima lux,una nox perpetua nobis est dormienda. Da mihi basia mille, deinde centum; deinde mille altera, deinde secunda centum: deinde, ubi plurima basia fecerimus, conturbemus illa, ne sciamus numerum basiorum, aut ne quis malus numerum invenire possit atque invidere.

I have not done the second part yet. I am not good with the subjunctive at all. Is this correct:

We are living, my Lesbia, and we love, and all the talk of the old, and so moral, may they be worth less than a penny to us! Suns may set, and suns may return: but when our brief light has set, night is one long everlasting sleep. Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred more, another thousand, and another hundred, and, when we’ve counted up the many thousands, confuse them so as not to know them all, so that no enemy may be jealous, by knowing that there were so many kisses.

[furrykef]

Hi, welcome to Textkit. Hope you're still around... it's not typical for a post to sit in the moderation queue for several months, but since I'm not a moderator, I had no control over it.

Anyway, I'm afraid you posted this in the wrong forum. This poem does appear in Wheelock, but not in chapter 28 (or 38) and not in this form (Wheelock uses the original poem, whereas this one is slightly simplified). Nevertheless, here's my take on it:

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love; and let us value all the chatter of serious old men [to be worth] one penny. Suns may set and return; when this very brief light has set once and for all, we must sleep one eternal night. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred; then a thousand others, then a second hundred: then, when we have made very many kisses, let us muddle them, so that we do not know the number of the kisses, nor so that any bad person could find out and become jealous.

If you want to see the real Catullus 5 with an English translation, you can read it here (be warned that the site uses "u" in place of "v", and the translation is not strictly literal).