This
boat you see, friends, will tell you
that she was the fastest of
craft,
not to be challenged for speed
by any vessel afloat,
whether
driven by sail or the labour of oars.
The threatening
Adriatic coast won’t deny it,
nor the isles of the Cyclades,
nor
noble Rhodes, nor fearful Bosphorus,
nor the grim bay of the Black
Sea
where, before becoming a boat, she was
leafy wood: for on the
heights of Cytorus
she often hissed to the whispering leaves.
The
boat says these things were well known to you,
and are, Amastris
and box-wood clad Cytorus:
she says from the very beginning she
stood
on your slope, that she dipped her oars
in your water, and
carried her owner from there
over so many headstrong
breakers,
whether the wind cried from starboard
or larboard, or
whether Jupiter struck at the sheets
on one side and the other,
together:
and no prayers to the gods of the shore were offered
for
her, when she came from a foreign sea
here, as far as this limpid
lake.
But that’s past: now hidden away here
she ages quietly
and offers herself to you,
Castor and his brother, heavenly Twins.
Gaius
Valerius Catullus
