in perpetuum

My brother's memorial service was a year ago today. I thought, at the time, about posting the speech I gave, and then I thought about posting that speech today, a year later in memorium; but I actually don't really want to reread that speech, even though it was a good one and I meant everything I said. Let's go with this instead, shall we? Last year it was a little too immediately topical, but this year it feels just about right.

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem,
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi.
Nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Transported through many peoples and many seas,
I have come, O my brother, for these wretched offerings,
So that I might honor the dead with final gifts
and speak pointlessly to your silent ashes,
Because Fate stole you yourself away from me,
Oh, my wretched brother, taken from me undeservedly.
Yet now in these circumstances, these offerings
handed down from our ancestors, ancient custom and sad duty --
Accept them dripping with tears from your brother,
and for eternity, O my brother: "hail and farewell."

—Gaius Valerius Catullus, Carmina 101. The translation is starlady's. She posted it last year, and I quoted it in the speech I gave at the memorial; there are thousands of different translations of Carmina 101 -- it's one of Catullus's most famous poems, and most quoted -- but I like this one.