C. Valerius Catullus, Carmina
Leonard C. Smithers, Ed.

That pinnace which you see, my friends, says that it was the speediest of boats, that it could gain the lead of any craft skimming the surface, whether the task were to fly with oarblades or sail. And she denies that the shore of the menacing Adriatic denies this, or the Cyclades awkward [to navigate], or noble Rhodes and bristling Thracian Propontis, or the frim Pontic gulf, where she afterwards was a pinnace, beforehand was bearded forest; and often on Cytorus' ridge she gave out a rustling with speaking foliage. And you, Pontic Amastris, and to boxwood bearing Cytorus, the pinnace declares that this was and is most well-known to you; she says that from its origin it stood upon your topmost peak, dipped its oars in your waters, and bore its master from there through so many seas lacking self-control, whether the wind called from port or starboard or whether favorable Jove fell on both the sheets at once; and nor were any vows [from stress of storm] made be her to shore-gods, when she came from the most distant sea to this glassy lake. But these things were of before: now laid away, she grows old in peace and dedicates herself to you, twin Castor, and to Castor's twin.