#101 - at his brother's grave

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus

advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,

ut te postremo donarem munere mortis

et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cincerem.

Quandoquiquem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,

heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,

nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum

tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,

accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,

atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

~Catullus

Through many nations and across many seas

I have come, my brother, to these sad rights,

in order that I might bestow on you the final gift of death

and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes.

Since fate has stolen you, your very self, from me,

Alas my brother, undeservedly taken from me!

yet now as things are, handed down from fathers

as a sad gift and duty, take these rites

dripping with many tears of a brother,

and forever, brother, hail and farewell.