Book 4

I Caesar's life-giving day, more sacred than that light which Ida shared, when she bore Cretan Jove, come long, I pray, and richer in years than Pylian Nestor, and shine forever with this face, or one still finer. Let him long honour Pallas in Alban gold, and let the great oak-crown pass through such mighty hands; let him keep the ages that return in the vast cycle and the rites that Romulean Tarentos holds. Great things, you gods, we ask—but owed to the earth: for so great a god, what prayers could be too bold?

II Lately Horatius alone, among them all, watched the show in a black cloak, while the commons, the lesser ranks and the greatest, sat in white beside their sacred prince. Suddenly snow fell from the whole sky: now Horatius watches in a white cloak.

III Look how thick a fleece of silent waters streams down on Caesar's face and into his lap. Yet he indulges Jove, and with head unmoved laughs at the waters thickened by sluggish frost, he who is used to tiring the star of northern Bootes and ignoring Helice with his dripping hair. Who plays with dry waters and sports from the sky? I suspect these snows belong to Caesar's boy.

IV What a dried marsh of a stagnant pool stinks of, what the raw fumes of the Albulan springs, what the stale reek of a saltwater fish-tank, what a lazy he-goat pressing on a she-goat, what an old soldier's worn-out marching boot, what a fleece twice steeped in purple dye, what the fasts of women keeping the Sabbath, what the panting breath of sad defendants, what filthy Leda's dying lamp, what wrestlers' grease made from Sabine lees, what a fox in flight, a viper's den— all that, Bassa, I would rather smell than smell of you.

V An honest man and poor, true in tongue and heart, what do you want, Fabianus, making for Rome? You cannot pass for a pimp or a party-reveller, nor summon trembling defendants with a grim voice, nor seduce the wife of a dear friend, nor get it up for frigid old women, nor peddle empty smoke around the Palatine, nor clap for Canus, nor clap for Glaphyrus: how, poor wretch, will you live? "A reliable man, a loyal friend—" That's nothing: you'll never make a Philomelus that way.

VI You want to be thought chaster than a modest virgin and seem of tender innocence, Malisianus, when you are filthier than the man who recites poems made in Tibullus's metre in Stella's house.

VII Why, boy Hyllus, do you refuse today what you gave yesterday, turned harsh so suddenly, who were just now so soft? But already you plead your beard, your years, your hairs. O night, how long you are, that make a man old in one go! Why mock us? Yesterday, Hyllus, you were a boy— tell us, by what reasoning are you a man today?

VIII The first and second hours wear out the morning callers, the third sets the hoarse pleaders to work, into the fifth Rome stretches her varied labours, the sixth is rest for the weary, the seventh will be the end, the eighth till the ninth suffices for the gleaming wrestling-grounds, the ninth bids us crush the piled-up couches: the tenth is the hour for my little books, Euphemus, when your care prepares the ambrosial feast and good Caesar relaxes with heavenly nectar and holds in his great hand a modest cup. Then let my jokes in: with timid step my Thalia fears to go in loose stride to Jove at morning.

IX Daughter of Sotas the doctor, Labulla, you leave your husband and chase after Clytus, you give and you love: you are going to ruin.

X While my little book is new, its brow not yet shaved smooth, while the page, not quite dry, fears to be touched, go, boy, and carry the light gift to a dear friend who has earned to be the first to hold my trifles. Run, but well equipped: let a Punic sponge go with the book—it suits my kind of gifts. Many erasures, Faustinus, cannot mend my jokes: one erasure can.

XI While you swell, puffed up with an empty name, and are ashamed, poor wretch, to be a Saturninus, you stirred up unholy wars beneath the Arcadian Bear, like the man who bore the arms of his Egyptian wife. Had the fate of this name so slipped your mind, that the heavy wrath of the Actian sea once buried? Or did the Rhine promise you what the Nile did not give him, and grant you more than the northern waters? That Antonius too fell by our arms, who set beside you, traitor, had been a Caesar.

XII You refuse no one, Thais; but if that does not shame you, let this at least shame you, Thais—to refuse nothing.

XIII Claudia Peregrina weds my Pudens, Rufus: joy to your torches, O Hymenaeus, joy. So well does rare cinnamon blend with its nard, so well Massic wine with Attic honeycombs; no better are elms joined to tender vines, no more does the lotus love the water, the myrtle the shore. Fair Concord, dwell forever on that bed, and let Venus be always kind to so matched a yoke: let her love him grown old one day, and let her, even when old, not seem old to her husband.

XIV Silius, glory of the Castalian sisters, who with mighty voice crush the perjuries of barbarian rage and the treacherous wiles of Hannibal, and force the fickle Carthaginians to yield to the great Africani: set your sternness a little aside, while wandering December, with coaxing dice, rattles its uncertain dice-boxes here and there and plays at heads-or-tails with the wickeder die, and grant some leisure to my Muses; read with no grim brow, but relaxed, my little books, soaked in playful jests. So perhaps tender Catullus dared to send his Sparrow to great Maro.

XV When yesterday you asked me for a thousand sesterces for six or seven days, Caecilianus, I said "I haven't got it"; but you, pleading a friend's arrival, ask me for a dish and a few vessels. Are you a fool? Or do you think me one, my friend? I refused you a thousand sesterces—shall I give you five thousand?

XVI That you were no stepson to your stepmother, Gallus, was the rumour, while she was your father's wife. Yet while your father lived, it could not be proved. Now your father is nowhere, Gallus; the stepmother is at home. Let great Tullius be called back from the shades below and Regulus himself defend you—still you cannot be acquitted: for she who does not cease to be a stepmother after the father, Gallus, never was one.

XVII You bid me write verses against Lycisca, Paulus, such that, reading them, she may blush and be enraged. O Paulus, you are wicked: you want to have her all to yourself.

XVIII Where the gate near the Vipsanian columns drips and the slick stone is soaked with constant rain, into a boy's throat, as he passed beneath the dripping roof, a mass of water fell, heavy with winter ice: and when it had finished the poor boy's cruel fate, the tender blade melted in the warm wound. What has savage Fortune not claimed as her right? Or where is death not, if water cuts our throats?

XIX This thick weave, nursling of a Sequanian weaver, which, though foreign, bears a Spartan name— coarse, but in icy December not to be scorned— I send you as a gift, an outlandish endromis: whether you rub the sluggish wrestling-grease or the warm trigon, or snatch the dusty handballs in your grip, or share out the feathery weight of the loose ball, or seek to outrun swift Athas in the race— so that the piercing cold not enter your dripping limbs, nor a sudden rainbow weigh you down with rain. Wrapped in this gift, you will laugh at winds and showers: not even in Tyrian linen would you be so safe.

XX Caerellia calls herself an old woman, though she's a doll; Gellia calls herself a doll, though she's a hag. You could bear neither one, Collinus, nor the other: one is absurd, the other sickening.

XXI That there are no gods, that heaven is empty, Segius declares: and his proof is that he sees himself made rich while he denies all this.

XXII Having endured her first bridal night, still to be soothed toward her husband, Cleopatra had plunged herself into the gleaming pool, fleeing his embrace. But the water betrayed her hiding: she shone, though covered wholly by the water. So lilies hidden are counted through clear glass, so thin crystal forbids roses to lie concealed. I leaped in, and diving through the shallows snatched struggling kisses: the clear water, you forbade more.

XXIII While you dawdle too long and slowly debate who should be first for you and who second among those the Greek epigram has matched: Callimachus himself, Thalia, has yielded the palm of his own will to eloquent Bruttianus. And if he, sated with Attic wit, should sport with the salt of Roman Minerva, make me, I pray, second after him.

XXIV Every woman she had as a friend, Fabianus, Lycoris has carried out to burial: let her be my wife's friend.

XXV Shores of Altinum that rival the villas of Baiae, and you, wood that witnessed Phaethon's pyre, and you, fairest of the Dryads, who wed Antenor's Faunus, Sola, the maiden, by the Euganean lakes, and you, Aquileia, blessed by the Ledaean Timavus, where Cyllarus drank the seven streams: you shall be the rest and harbour of my old age, if my leisure should ever be my own.

XXVI That all year I have not seen you at home in the morning, shall I tell you, Postumus, how much I have lost? Sixty sesterces, I think, twice; thrice twenty, I think. Forgive me: I buy my little toga for more, Postumus.

XXVII You often praise my little books, Augustus. Look, the envious man denies it: do you praise them the less? What of this—that you gave me not only honouring words, but gifts no other man could give? Look, again the spiteful one gnaws his blackened nails. Give all the more, Caesar, that he may suffer.

XXVIII You gave tender Lupercus, Chloe, cloaks Spanish, Tyrian, and scarlet, a toga washed in warm Galaesus, Indian sardonyx, Scythian emeralds, and a hundred lords of fresh-struck coin: and whatever he keeps asking you keep giving. Alas, poor sleek plucked thing, alas for you: your Lupercus will leave you stripped bare.

XXIX Their own great number stands against my little books, dear Pudens, and the crowded work wearies and gluts the reader. Rare things please: so the first fruits hold more favour, so winter roses earn their price; so a grasping mistress's scorn commends her, nor does an ever-open door keep the young man. Persius is counted more often in his one book than trifling Marsus in his whole Amazonis. You too, whatever of my little books you reread, think it the only one: so it will be worth more to you.

XXX Far from the Baian lake, we warn you, fisherman, flee, lest you go off guilty. These waters are swum by sacred fish that know their master and lick that hand than which nothing in the world is greater. What's more, they have names, and at their master's voice each comes when called. Once an impious Libyan, in this deep, while drawing his prey with trembling rod, suddenly, his eyes snatched away, went blind, and could not see the fish he'd caught, and now, hating the sacrilegious hooks, he sits by the Baian lake, a beggar. But you, while you may, withdraw guiltless, casting only honest food into the waves, and revere the delicate fish.

XXXI That you wish to be named and read in my little books, and think that some honour comes to you in this, may I die if it is not most welcome to me, and I want to have set you among my pages. But you bear a name imposed against the sisters' spring, which your hard mother gave you; one that neither Melpomene nor Polyhymnia could utter, nor pious Calliope with Phoebus. So adopt some name the Muses can welcome: "Hippodame" is not always nicely said.

XXXII It both hides and shines, sealed in a Phaethontian drop, so the bee seems shut in its own nectar. A worthy reward she won for all her toils: one may believe she herself chose to die so.

XXXIII Though you have chests full of laboured books, why, Sosibianus, do you publish nothing? "My heirs," you say, "will bring out my poems." When? It was high time, Sosibianus, that you were read.

XXXIV Though your toga is dirty, still he speaks the truth, Attalus, whoever says you have a snow-white toga.

XXXV With facing brows we saw soft does charge together and fall by an equal lot of fate. The dogs watched the prey, and the proud hunter stood amazed that nothing was left for his knife. Whence did such light spirits burn with such fury? So bulls fight, so heroes fall.

XXXVI Your beard is grey, your hair is black: you cannot dye your beard—that's the reason—but you can, Olus, dye your hair.

XXXVII "Coranus owes a hundred, Mancinus two hundred, Titius three hundred, Albinus twice that, Sabinus a million and another, Serranus the same; from his apartment-blocks and estates, three million clear, from his Parman flocks come twice three hundred a year": all day long, Afer, you tell me this, and I know it better than my own name. You must pay out something, that I may bear it: ease my daily nausea with cash— I cannot listen to all that for free, Afer.

XXXVIII Galla, say no: love sates itself, unless its joys are torment. But don't, Galla, say no too long.

XXXIX You have collected silver of every kind, and you alone have Myron's old craft, you alone the hand of Praxiteles and Scopas, you alone the chasing of Phidias's tool, you alone the labours of Mentor. Nor do you lack genuine Gratian pieces, nor what is overlaid with Galician gold, nor embossed plate from ancestral tables. Yet among all your silver I wonder why you have none, Charinus, that is pure.

XL While the halls of the Pisos stood with all their lineage and learned Seneca's house, three times to be reckoned; above such great realms I preferred you alone, Postumus: you were poor and a knight, but to me you were a consul. With you, Postumus, I counted thirty winters: we had a couch in common, one and shared. Now you can give, now lose, full of honours, lavish with wealth: I wait, Postumus, to see what you do. You do nothing, and it's too late to seek another patron.— Does this please you, Fortune? "Postumus has cheated."

XLI Why, about to recite, do you wrap wool round your neck? That would suit our ears better.

XLII If anyone could grant me what I ask, hear, Flaccus, what sort of boy I'd want to ask for. First, let the boy be born on Nile's shores: no land knows better how to give naughtiness. Let him be whiter than snow: for in dusky Mareotis that colour is the fairer, the rarer it is. Let his eyes vie with the stars, and soft locks lash his neck: I don't like curled hair, Flaccus. A small brow, a nose slightly and lightly hooked, lips that redden, rivals of Paestan roses. Let him often force me unwilling, and be unwilling when I'm willing, let him often be freer than his master; let him fear the boys, and often shut out the girls: a man to the rest, let him be a boy to me alone. "Now I know, and you don't fool me: for in my judgement too it's true. Such," you'll say, "was my Amazonicus."

XLIII I did not call you a pervert, Coracinus: I am not so rash or bold, nor one to tell lies gladly. If I called you a pervert, Coracinus, may Pontia's flask be angry with me, may Metilus's cup be angry with me: I swear by the Syrian tumours, I swear by the Berecyntian frenzies. What did I say, then? This light, trifling thing, which is well known, which you yourself won't deny— I said, Coracinus, you go down on women.

XLIV Here is Vesuvius, lately green with shady vines, here the noble grape had pressed its dripping vats: these ridges Bacchus loved more than the hills of Nysa, on this mount the Satyrs lately led their dances. This was Venus's seat, dearer to her than Sparta, this place was famous for the name of Hercules. All lies sunk in flames and dismal ash: the gods themselves would not have wished this allowed them.

XLV These offerings, Phoebus, for his son the Palatine Parthenius joyfully gives from a full incense-box, that Burrus, who marks his first five years with a new cycle, may fill out countless Olympiads. Make the father's vows come true: so may your own tree love you, and your sister rejoice in her sure virginity, so may you shine in perpetual bloom, so may Bacchus's locks at last be not so long, Phoebus, as yours.

XLVI The Saturnalia made Sabellus rich: deservedly Sabellus swells with pride, and thinks and proclaims that no one among the pleaders is more blessed. These airs and high spirits are given Sabellus by half a peck of grain and crushed beans, and three half-pounds of incense and pepper, and a Lucanian sausage with a Faliscan paunch, and a Syrian flask of black boiled wine, and figs frozen in a Libyan jar with onions and snails and cheese. From a Picene client too there came a little box that holds but scant olives, and, polished with the potter's coarse tool, a seven-piece dinner-set of Saguntum, the yellow earthenware of a Spanish wheel, and a napkin striped with a broad purple band. More fruitful Saturnalia than these Sabellus has not had in ten years.

XLVII Phaethon is painted for you on this panel in encaustic. What do you mean, making Phaethon twice-burned?

XLVIII You love to be buggered; once buggered, Papylus, you weep. Why, Papylus, grieve at the deed you wish done? Do you repent the obscene itch? Or do you weep more at this, Papylus—that you have stopped being buggered?

XLIX He does not know, believe me, what epigrams are, Flaccus, who calls them only sport and jokes. He plays more who writes the breakfast of savage Tereus, or your dinner, indigestible Thyestes, or Daedalus fitting liquid wings to his boy, or Polyphemus pasturing Sicilian sheep. All windy bombast is far from my little books, nor does my Muse swell in a madman's tragic robe. "Yet everyone praises, admires, adores those works." I admit it: they praise those—but they read these.

L Why, Thais, do you keep calling me old? No one, Thais, is too old to be sucked off.

LI When you didn't have six thousand, Caecilianus, you rode about widely in a huge six-bearer litter: after blind fortune gave you two million and the coins burst your purse, look—you've become a footman. What should I wish you for your merits and such great praises? May the gods give you back your sedan, Caecilianus.

LII If you don't stop riding behind your team of goats, Hedylus, you who were just now a fig will soon be a wild fig.

LIII This man whom you often see within the inner shrine of our Pallas and the threshold of the new temple, Cosmus, an old man with staff and wallet, whose hair stands grey and rotting, and a filthy beard falls on his chest, whom a coarse cloak covers, wife of his bare pallet, to whom the crowd he meets gives food he's barked for— you think him a Cynic, deceived by the false image: he's no Cynic, Cosmus. What then? A Dog.

LIV O you who have been allowed to touch the Tarpeian oaks and crown your deserving locks with the first wreath, if you are wise, Collinus, make use of all your days and always think the last is at hand for you. No one has won by prayer from the three wool-spinning girls a respite: they keep the day they have fixed. Be richer than Crispus, steadier than Thrasea himself, more elegant than splendid Melior though you may— Lachesis adds nothing to the wool, unwinds the sisters' spindles, and one of the three always says no.

LV Lucius, glory of your times, who do not let old Caius and our Tagus yield to eloquent Arpi: let the man born among Argive cities sing in song of Thebes or Mycenae, or famous Rhodes, or the Ledaean wrestling-grounds of lustful Sparta: let us, sprung from Celts and Iberians, not be ashamed in grateful verse to name the harsher names of our land: Bilbilis, supreme in its fierce metal, which beats the Chalybes and Norici, and Platea ringing with its own iron, which, with a slender but restless current, Salo, temperer of arms, surrounds, and the guardianship and dances of Rixamae, and the festive banquets of Carduae, and Peteris red with woven roses, and the ancient theatres of our fathers, Rigae, and the Silai, sure with the light javelin, and the lakes of Turgontum and Turasia, and the pure shallows of little Tvetonissa, and the holy oak-grove of Burado, through which even the lazy traveller strolls, and the fields of curving Vativesca that Manlius works with sturdy young oxen. At these so rustic names, dainty reader, do you laugh? Laugh you may— these so rustic I prefer to Butunti.

LVI Because you send huge gifts to old men and widows, do you want me to call you generous, Gargilianus? Nothing is fouler, nothing more vile than you alone, who can call your snares gifts: so the deceitful hook indulges greedy fish, so the cunning bait deceives the foolish beasts. What it is to be lavish, what it is to give, I'll teach you, if you don't know: give, Gargilianus, to me.

LVII While the alluring pools of wanton Lucrinus hold me and the caves that steam with their pumice springs, you dwell in the realm of the Argive settler, Faustinus, where the twentieth milestone leads you from the city. But the bristling breast of the Nemean monster burns, and it is not enough that Baiae glow with their own fire. So, sacred springs and pleasant shores, farewell, home alike of Nymphs and of Nereids. In icy winter outdo the Herculean hills, but now yield to the cool of Tibur.

LVIII In the dark you mourn your lost husband, Galla. By now, I think, you're ashamed to weep for a husband, Galla.

LIX While a viper crept among the weeping Heliads' boughs, an amber drop flowed onto the beast in its path: and while it marvels to be held in the rich dew, it stiffened, suddenly bound by the congealed ice. Don't be proud of your royal tomb, Cleopatra, if a viper lies in a nobler sepulchre.

LX Let men make for Ardea and the Castran fields at midsummer and the land that burns under the Cleonaean star, since Curiatius condemned the airs of Tibur, sent to the Styx among its praised waters. You can shut out fate in no place: when death has come, in the midst of Tibur there is Sardinia.

LXI That a friend gave you two hundred thousand, Mancinus, you lately boasted with proud lips, delighted. Four days ago, in the poets' school, while we chatted, you said cloaks bought for ten thousand were a gift from Pompulla, and a true sardonyx ringed three times with veins, and two gems like the waves of the sea, you swore Bassa and Caelia had given. Yesterday at the theatre, while Pollio sang, when you suddenly left, in flight you babbled that three hundred thousand had come to you in legacy, and a hundred in the morning, and a hundred after noon. What such great wrong have we, your friends, done you? Have pity now, cruel man, and be silent at last. Or, if that tongue of yours cannot keep still, tell us, some time, what we'd like to hear.

LXII Black Lycoris has moved to Hercules' Tibur, believing all things turn white there.

LXIII While mother Caerellia made for Baiae from Bauli, she perished, sunk by the crime of the mad strait. What glory you have lost! These monstrous deeds, waters, you never showed Nero once, even when bidden.

LXIV Julius Martialis's few acres, more blessed than the gardens of the Hesperides, recline on the long ridge of the Janiculum: broad retreats jut out over the hills, and the level top, with its modest swell, enjoys a clearer sky, and when mist covers the curving valleys it alone shines with its own peculiar light; the dainty rooftops of the lofty villa are gently raised toward the clear stars. From here you may see the seven sovereign hills and take the measure of all Rome, the Alban and Tusculan hills too and every cool spot that lies near the city, old Fidenae and little Rubrae, and Anna Perenna's fruitful grove that delights in virgin blood. On that side, on the Flaminian and Salarian roads, the traveller is in view, his carriage silent, lest the wheel be a nuisance to sweet sleep, which neither the sailors' chant nor the shout of bargemen can break, though the Mulvian bridge is so near and keels glide swift down the sacred Tiber. This country place, or rather house to be called, its master commends: you'll think it your own, so unenvious and so generous, so kindly open in its hospitality: you'd believe it the pious home of Alcinous or of Molorchus just made rich. You who now think all things small, tame icy Tibur with a hundred hoes or Praeneste, and hand over hanging Setia to a single tenant— so long as, in my judgement, to all these are preferred Julius Martialis's few acres.

LXV Philaenis always weeps from one eye. You ask how that comes about? She's one-eyed.

LXVI You have always lived a small-town life, Linus, than which nothing at all can be cheaper. On the Ides and on rare Kalends the little toga was shaken out, and one dinner-suit lasted ten summers. The forest sent you boar, the field hare, unbought, the beaten woods gave heavy thrushes, the caught fish came from the river's depth, the red jar poured wine not foreign. No tender page sent from Argive stock, but a rustic crowd stood by the rough hearth. The bailiff's wife, or the hard tenant's bride, was tumbled whenever the wounded vein grew hot with wine. Fire did no harm to your roofs, nor the Dog-star to your fields, no ship was sunk at sea, for you had none. The gambling-die was never slipped you for the coaxing knuckle-bone, but nuts alone were the play of your thrift. Tell me, where is the million your greedy mother left? Nowhere: you've done, Linus, a difficult thing.

LXVII Poor Gaurus begged the praetor for a hundred thousand sesterces, known to him by an old friendship, and said this alone was lacking to his three hundred thousand, that he might be able, as a proper knight, to applaud his lord. The praetor said, "You know I'll give to Scorpus and Thallus, and would that I gave a hundred thousand only." Ah, shame on the ungrateful, shame on the ill-gotten chest. What you won't give a knight, praetor, will you give a horse?

LXVIII You invite me on a hundred farthings and dine well. Am I invited to dine, Sextus, or to envy?

LXIX You always set out Setine or Massic, Papylus, but rumour denies wines so good: you're said to have been four times widowed by this flask. I neither think it nor believe it, Papylus, nor am I thirsty.

LXX Nothing but a dry rope did his father leave Ammianus, dying, in his last will. Who could have thought it possible, Marullinus, that Ammianus would not want his father dead?

LXXI Long I search the whole city, Safronius Rufus, to find a girl who says no: no girl says no. As though it weren't allowed, as though it were shameful to refuse, as though it weren't permitted: no girl says no. Is none then chaste? A thousand are chaste: what, then, does a chaste one do? She doesn't give, yet she doesn't say no.

LXXII You demand, Quintus, that I give you my little books. I haven't got them, but the bookseller Tryphon has. "Shall I pay money for trifles and buy your poems, sane? No," you say, "I won't do anything so foolish." Nor will I.

LXXIII When grievous Vestinus was drawing his last hours and was now about to pass through the Stygian waters, he begged the sisters spinning his final threads to draw the dark strands a little while longer, already dead to himself, while he lived on for his dear friends. Such pious prayers moved the grim goddesses. Then, having divided his great wealth, he withdrew from the light and after this believed he died an old man.

LXXIV You see how brave the battles unwarlike does attempt? How great the anger in such timid beasts? With small brows they burn to charge to the death. Do you wish, Caesar, to spare the does? Send dogs.

LXXV O happy in your heart, Nigrina, happy in your husband, and first glory among Latin brides: it delights you to share your inherited wealth with your spouse, rejoicing in a partner who is your fellow. Let Evadne be burned, flung onto her husband's flames, nor let lesser fame bear Alcestis to the stars: you do better: by a sure pledge of life you've earned that your love need not be proved by death.

LXXVI You sent me six thousand when I asked twelve: to get twice six, I'll ask twice twelve.

LXXVII Never have I asked the gods for riches, content with little and happy with my own: Poverty—forgive me—be gone. What is the cause of this sudden, novel prayer? I want to see Zoilus hanged.

LXXVIII Though your sixtieth harvest is already stored away and your white face shines with much grey hair, you dash about, wandering the whole city, nor is there any chair to which you don't carry an unwearied "Good morning" each dawn; without you no tribune may rightly go forth, nor does either consul lack your attendance; ten times you climb back up the sacred Palatine slope and sound nothing but Sigeri and Partheni. Let young men do this: nothing, Afer, is more unseemly than a busybody grown old.

LXXIX You were always a guest at my Tibur place, Matho. Now you buy it. I've tricked you: I'm selling you your own land.

LXXX You declaim in a fever, Maro: that this is madness, if you don't know, you're not sane, friend Maro. You declaim while sick, you declaim in a semi-tertian fever: if you can't sweat otherwise, there's a method in it. "Yet it's a great thing." You're wrong; when fever burns your guts, the great thing, Maro, is to keep quiet.

LXXXI When Fabulla had read my epigram in which I complain that no girl says no, asked once and twice and three times, she ignored a lover's prayers. Now, Fabulla, promise: I told you to refuse, I did not tell you to refuse forever.

LXXXII Commend these little books too to Venuleius, Rufus, and ask him to charge a little leisure to me, and, forgetting a while his cares and his own works, not to weigh my trifles with a sour ear. But let him read them neither after the first cup nor the last, but when Bacchus in the middle loves his battles. If it's too much to have read both books, let one roll be folded back: so the work, divided, will be brief.

LXXXIII Nothing is worse than you, Naevolus, when carefree; the same man when anxious, nothing is better than you, Naevolus. Carefree, you return no greeting, you despise everyone, no man is free in your eyes, no man born: anxious, you give gifts, you greet your lord and king, you invite to dinner. Be anxious, Naevolus.

LXXXIV There is no one in the people or the whole city who can prove by his own account that Thais has gone to bed with him, though many desire and many ask. Is Thais so chaste, I ask? No—she sucks.

LXXXV We drink from glass, you from myrrhine ware, Ponticus. Why? So that a clear cup won't betray your two kinds of wine.

LXXXVI If you wish to win approval from Attic ears, I urge and advise you, little book, to please learned Apollinaris. Nothing is more exacting and erudite, but nothing more candid and kind: if he holds you in his heart, on his lips, you need fear no sneers from the spiteful, nor will you give the mackerel troublesome coats. If he condemns you, you may at once run to the fishmongers' shelves, fit paper for boys to scribble on the back.

LXXXVII Your Bassa, Fabullus, always keeps an infant by her, calls it her sport and her darling, and—what you'd wonder at more—she's no fond of children. What's the reason, then? Bassa is in the habit of farting.

LXXXVIII You sent back no gift for my small present, and now five days of Saturn have already passed. So not even six scruples of Septician silver were sent, nor a napkin from a grumbling client, nor a jar reddened with the blood of an Antipolitan tunny, nor one bearing small Syrian figs, nor a little basket of wrinkled Picene olives— so that you could say you remembered me? You'll deceive others with kind words and looks, for to me you'll now be a known dissembler.

LXXXIX Stop now, enough now, little book, we've already reached the very end-knobs. Yet you want to go further on and on, nor can you be held back at the last sheet, as if your work were not yet done, which was done at the first page too. Now the reader grumbles and grows faint, now the copyist himself says it too: "Stop now, enough now, little book."