That pinnace which ye see, my friends, says that it was the speediest of boats, nor any craft the surface skimming but it could gain the lead, whether the course were gone o'er with plashing oars or bended sail. And this the menacing Adriatic shores may not deny, nor may the Island Cyclades, nor noble Rhodes and bristling Thrace, Propontis nor the gusty Pontic gulf, where itself (afterwards a pinnace to become) erstwhile was a foliaged clump; and oft on Cytorus' ridge hath this foliage announced itself in vocal rustling. And to thee, Pontic Amastris, and to box-screened Cytorus, the pinnace vows that this was alway and yet is of common knowledge most notorious; states that from its primal being it stood upon thy topmost peak, dipped its oars in thy waters, and bore its master thence through surly seas of number frequent, whether the wind whistled 'gainst the starboard quarter or the lee or whether Jove propitious fell on both the sheets at once; nor any vows [from stress of storm] to shore-gods were ever made by it when coming from the uttermost seas unto this glassy lake. But these things were of time gone by: now laid away, it rusts in peace and dedicates its age to thee, twin Castor, and to Castor's twin.

Discover the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus, the Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote in the neoteric style, with a focus on personal life. His works, known as the Carmina, are highly personal, humorous, and emotional, filled with hyperbole, alliteration, and diminutives. Catullus's explicit sexual imagery has shocked many readers, but his surviving works are still widely read and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art. Here's an excerpt from one of the many poems featured in this collection, 'To Cinna': "Pompey first being chosen to Consul, twofold (O Cinna!) / Men for amours were famed: also when chosen again / Two they remained; but now is each one grown to a thousand / Gallants:—fecundate aye springeth adultery's seed."

Catullus, who lived from about 84 to 54 BC, was one of ancient Rome's most gifted, versatile and passionate poets. Living at a time of radical social change at the end of the Roman Republic, he belonged to a group of young poets who embraced Hellenistic forms to forge a new literary style, the so-called 'neoterics'. This comprehensive edition includes the complete, unabridged and unbowdlerised poems and is the definitive student edition of Catullus' work. The extensive introduction covers topics including the role of Catullus' literary paramour Lesbia, the few biographical certainties known about Catullus' life and other figures from the contemporary political scene. In addition to this, there is a brief overview of the poems' textual history, discussion of Catullus' style across the collection and linguistic discussions of morphology, vocabulary, syntax and metre. The commentary notes include individual introductions and bibliographies to each poem, as well as line by line notes which translate difficult phrases and gloss obscure words. In addition to this, more detailed explanations of poetic, structural and contextual points are also provided.

A collection of poems by and about homosexuals includes authors, such as Sappho, Walter Whitman, W.H. Auden, and Allen Ginsberg