Report says that you, Fidentinus, recite my compositions in public as if they were your own. If you allow them to be called mine, I will send you my verses gratis; if you wish them to be called yours, pray buy them, that they may be mine no longer.
The book which you are reading aloud is mine,
Fidentinus; but, while you read it so badly, it
begins to be yours.
You are pretty,—we know it; and young,—
it is true; and rich,—who can deny it? But when
you praise yourself extravagantly, Fabulla, you
appear neither rich, nor pretty, nor young.
"You are too free spoken," is your constant
remark to me, Choerilus. He who speaks against
you, Choerilus, is indeed a free speaker.
You complain, Velox, that the epigrams which
I write are long. You yourself write nothing;
your attempts are shorter.
What's this that myrrh doth still smell in thy
kiss,
And that with thee no other odour is?
Tis doubt, my Postumus, he that doth smell
So sweetly always, smells not very well.
Since your legs, Phoebus, resemble the horns of the moon, you might bathe your feet in a cornucopia.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. II. Ep. 35.
In whatever place you meet me, Postumus, you cry out immediately, and your very first words are, "How do you do?" You say this, even if you meet me ten times in one single hour: you, Postumus, have nothing, I suppose, to do.
If you wish, Faustinus, a bath of boiling water
to be reduced in temperature,—a bath, such as
scarcely Julianus could enter,—ask the rhetorician Sabimeus to bathe himself in it. He would
freeze the warm baths of Nero.
I could do without your face, and your neck,
and your hands, and your limbs, and your
bosom, and other of your charms. Indeed, not
to fatigue myself with enumerating each of
them, I could do without you, Chloe, altogether.
Lycoris has buried all the female friends she
had, Fabianus: would she were the friend of my wife.
You were constantly, Matho, a guest at my villa at Tivoli. Now you buy it—I have deceived you; I have merely sold you what was already your own.
Do you wonder for what reason, Theodorus,
notwithstanding your frequent requests and importunities, I have never presented you with my
works? I have an excellent reason; it is lest you
should present me with yours.
You put fine dishes on your table, Olus, but
you always put them on covered. This is ridiculous; in the same way I could put fine dishes
on my table.
You ask for lively epigrams, and propose lifeless subjects. What can I do, Cscihanus? You
expect Hybken or Hymethian honey to be produced, and yet offer the Attic bee nothing but
Corsican thyme?
And have you been able, Flaccus, to see the slender Thais? Then, Flaccus, I suspect you can see what is invisible.
When to secure your bald pate from the weather,
You lately wore a cap of black neats' leather;
He was a very wag, who to you said,
"Why do you wear your slippers on your head?"
See how the mountain goat hangs from the
summit of the cliff; you would expect it to fall;
it is merely showing its contempt for the dogs.
Never think of leaving perfumes or wine to
your heir. Administer these yourself, and let
him have your money.
Sir Drake whom well the world's end knew
Which thou did'st compass round,
And whom both Poles of heaven once saw
Which North and South do bound,
The stars above would make thee known,
If men here silent were;
The sun himself cannot forget
His fellow traveller.
Some learned writers . . . have compared a
Scorpion to an Epigram . . . because as the
sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so the
force and virtue of an epigram is in the conclusion.
