Catullus Carmen CI

Aubrey Beardsley

Catullus Carmen CI

Autograph manuscript,

[1896].

In his “Editorial Note” for The Savoy of November 1896, Arthur Symons ruefully announced that “with the next number” the magazine would “come to an end”—a short lifespan for a publishing venture that only had begun in January of that year. Fittingly, the same issue contained Beardsley’s drawing Ave Atque Vale, depicting a half-undressed classical figure with furrowed brow and raised arm, bidding someone out of sight good-bye. On the opposite page was printed Beardsley’s own translation from Latin of Catullus’s “Carmen CI,” which concluded with the words, “And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!” Displayed here is that translation in Beardsley’s hand. Less than two years later, of course, the world would be forced to say its final, bitter, and much-too-early farewell to Beardsley himself, when he succumbed to tuberculosis in Menton, France.

From the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press