How Many Kisses: to Lesbia - Catullus

Lesbia, you ask how many kisses of yours

would be enough and more to satisfy me.

As many as the grains of Libyan sand

that lie between hot Jupiter’s oracle,

at Ammon, in resin-producing Cyrene,

and old Battiades sacred tomb:

or as many as the stars, when night is still,

gazing down on secret human desires:

as many of your kisses kissed

are enough, and more, for mad Catullus,

as can’t be counted by spies

nor an evil tongue bewitch us.

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Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC) Italy (ancient Rome)

Translated by A.S. Kline

Source: Poetry in Translation

• Battiades - A patronymic for the poet Callimachus, a descendant of King Battus of Cyrene, a Spartan who built the Libyan city in 630 BC