For Miss Moogie

Catullus - Carmen 5

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us judge all the rumors of the old men
to be worth just one penny!
The suns are able to fall and rise:
When that brief light has fallen for us,
we must sleep a never ending night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand more, then another hundred.
Then, when we have made many thousands,
we will mix them all up so that we don't know,
and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out
how many kisses we have shared.

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(other translation)

Let us live, my Lesbia, and love,
and value at one farthing
all the talk of crabbed old men.
Suns may set and rise again.
For us, when the short light has once set,
remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet thousand, then a hundred.
Then, when we have made up many thousands,
we will confuse our counting, that we may not know the reckoning,
nor any malicious person blight them with evil eye,
when he knows that our kisses are so many.

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Dutch Translation

Leven, Lesbia, is liefhebben
en geen rode duit geven
om het gebrom van oude heren.

De zon gaat uit, gaat aan.
Als ons licht eenmaal is uitgedoofd,
wacht ons de nacht -- voorgoed.

Geef me duizend-en-een zoenen,
en duizend-en-een erbij,
en duizend-en-een tot slot.

En zo duizenden keren
tot we de tel verliezen
en het getal vergeten

zodat geen boze tong jaloers
kan zijn als hij te weten komt
hoeveel het er zijn geweest.

(translation and @ by the brillant Paul Claes)