Gửi Lesbia Ad Lesbiam

Lesbia, ta hãy sống, hãy yêu nhau
Mặc ai già cả thở dài than vắn
Ta sẽ không cho họ một cắc nào
Mặc kệ mặt trời cứ lên rồi lặn.
Em hãy nhớ rằng ngày của ta chóng tàn
Ta về ngủ trong đêm dài vô tận
Hãy hôn anh nghìn nụ hôn cháy bỏng
Rồi lại một nghìn, rồi lại một trăm
Còn khi đã hôn nhau cả trăm ngàn lần
Không cần biết và ta không cần đếm
Để ai ganh tỵ về ta đừng nói nhảm
Rằng hai chúng mình…
Đã hôn nhau cả vạn, cả ngàn.

Let us live, my Lesbia
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.

So let’s live — really live! — for love and loving,
honey! Guff of the grumpy old harrumph!-ers
— what’s it worth? Is it even worth a penny?
Suns go under and bubble bright as ever
up but — smothered, our little light, the night’s one
sudden plunge — and oblivion forever.
Kiss me! kiss me a thousand times! A hundred!
Now a thousand again! Another hundred!
Don’t stop yet. Add a thousand. And a hundred.
So. Then post, sitting pretty on our millions,
sums that none — we the least — make head or tail of.
Don’t let’s know, even us. Or evil eyes might
glitter green, over such a spell of kisses.

Lesbia, let us love and live,
While the greybeards shake their fingers!
Not a penny will we give
For their talk while life still lingers.

Suns may set and suns may rise,
But, as soon as we are bidden,
We must close in sleep our eyes
For ever, and our light be hidden.

Kiss me then a thousand times
Give me yet a hundred kisses
Kiss, until the number climbs,
And till one or other misses!

Then, when all the kissing’s done,
Lest some jealous fellow see it,
We’ll destroy the tally run,
Set the number loose, and free it!

Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love,
and all the words of the old, and so moral,
may they be worth less than nothing to us!
Suns may set, and suns may rise again:
but when our brief light has set,
night is one long everlasting sleep.
Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred more,
another thousand, and another hundred,
and, when we’ve counted up the many thousands,
confuse them so as not to know them all,
so that no enemy may cast an evil eye,
by knowing that there were so many kisses.

Time to live and let love, Lesbia,
count old men’s cant, their carping chatter,
cheap talk, not worth one last penny piece.
You see, suns can set, can rise again
but when our brief light begins to wane
night brings on one long unending sleep.
So let me have a thousand kisses,
then a hundred, a thousand gratis,
a hundred, a thousand, on increase.
Then, when we’ve made our first million,
we can cook the books, just smudge the sums
so no evil eye can spy, sully,
by reckoning up our final tally.