We’ll live, my Lesbia, we’ll love
Valuing the stringent judgements
Of frigid elderlies as no more
Than an old browned penny.
Each day suns may fall and
Rise again. When light for us
In brevity sinks, night blankets
Us sleeping into perpetuity.
Give me kisses by the thousand!
Then a hundred more! Another
Thousand! Then twice a hundred!
Compounded on thousands! Plus a hundred.
When with many millions of kisses
We are well worn out, we’ll not know,
We’ll not care whether we’re cursed.
All we’ll know is of the bliss of kisses.
- Catullus 5