GCSE Latin: Catullus: Can she be faithful?

Latin

iucunsum, mea vita, mihi proponis amorem
hunc nostrum inter nos perpetuumque fore.
di magni, facite ut vere promittere possit
atque id sincere dicat et ex animo,
ut liceat nobis tota perducere vita
aeternum hoc sanctae foeduc anicitiae.

English

My life, you promise me that this love of ours
Between us will be sweet and everlasting.
Great Gods, grant that she may be able to promise truly
And that she may say it sincerely from the heart
So that we may be extended through our whole life
This pact of holy friendship to be eternal.

Notes

Here Catullus is addressing the Gods. Lines 1-2 present Lesbia's promise; Catullus' response follows in ll.3-6. proponis (l.1), in the second person leads us to picture Catullus and Lesbia face to face; however, possit (l.3) and dicat (l.4), in the third person, reveal that Catullus is addressing the Gods, having imagined Lesbia talking to him.

There are severeal pointers to Catullus' anxiety: possit (l.3) - is she capable of promising her love? He then promises three times over, vere (l.3), sincere (l.4) and ex animo (l.4) truthfully, sincerely and in his soul.

Catullus has hopes of a life long union, seemingly based on sexual desire (l.5). Note the reoccurance of religious language, di magni (l.3).

Read about Catullus.

Metre

Elegiac couplets (See also Catullus: Conflicting Emotions). In poems of this metre, the alternate lines which comprise five feet (= pentameters) are conventionally indented.