Book 14

I While the knight and his lord the senator delight in their dinner-suits, And the freedman's cap suits our Jove well; While the slave fears no aedile as he rattles the dice-box, Seeing the icy ponds so near at hand: Take the alternating lots of rich and poor: Let each guest give his own gifts to his own. "These are trifles and trumpery, and things cheaper still." Who doesn't know it? Or who denies what's so plain? But what better to do, Saturn, on your soggy days, Which your own son gave you in place of heaven? Would you have me write of Thebes, or Troy, or wicked Mycenae? "Play," you say, "with nuts." I've no wish to lose my nuts.

II At whatever point you like you can end this little book: Every piece is wrapped up in two lines. You ask why headings are written in? I'll explain: So that, if you prefer, you may read the headings alone.

III. Citron-Wood Writing-Tablets Had we not been cut into thin leaves of wood, We'd be the noble burden of a Libyan tusk.

IV. Five-Leaved Tablets The lord's happy threshold steams with slaughtered bullocks When high honor is granted on the fivefold wax.

V. Ivory Writing-Tablets Lest the dull wax darken your tired eyes, Let black lettering paint the snow-white ivory.

VI. Three-Leaved Tablets Then you'll think our triple tablets no cheap gift, When your girl writes on them that she will come.

VII. Parchment Tablets Take these for wax, though it be called parchment: You'll erase them whenever you want to write afresh.

VIII. Vitellian Tablets Though a girl has not yet read these, She knows what the Vitellian tablets want.

IX. The Same Because you see them so small, you think they're sent to a girl. You're wrong: this tablet asks for money too.

X. Larger Sheets There's no reason to think the gift a paltry one, When a poet gives you blank sheets of paper.

XI. Letter-Paper Whether sent to a slight acquaintance or a dear comrade, This paper is wont to call them all its own.

XII. Ivory Money-Boxes These boxes it is wrong to fill with anything But yellow coin: let cheap wood carry silver.

XIII. Wooden Money-Box If anything is still left in the dregs of our little box, It will be a gift. There's nothing? Then the box itself will be.

XIV. Ivory Dice When no die has shown you the same face twice, You'll say I have given you a great gift.

XV. Gaming-Dice Let me, the die, not equal the dice in number, so long As my throw is often bigger than theirs.

XVI. The Dice-Tower The cheating hand that knows how to throw loaded dice, If it throws through me, will gain nothing but wishes.

XVII. The Gaming-Board On this side the counter is scored by twice-six pips; On this the discolored piece dies to a twin foe.

XVIII. Counters If you play the wars of the cunning brigands, This piece of glass will be your soldier and your foe.

XIX. Nuts Gambling with nuts seems small and harmless; Yet often it has stripped boys of their backsides.

XX. A Pen-Case Drawing the case, remember to arm it with pens: We've given the rest; you supply the lighter things.

XXI. A Stylus-Case Here you'll have a stylus-case armed with its own iron: Give it to a boy, and it will be no slight gift.

XXII. A Toothpick Mastic is better: but if you lack a leafy point, A quill can clear your teeth.

XXIII. An Ear-Pick If your ear is troubled by a fretful itch, We give you arms suited to such cravings.

XXIV. A Golden Hairpin Lest your damp hair stain the bright silk, Let a pin fix and hold up your twisted locks.

XXV. Combs What will this boxwood do, which will find no hair, Given to you with its many-cleft teeth?

XXVI. Hair-Dye Chattian foam fires the Teutonic hair: You can be smarter with captive locks.

XXVII. Soap If, gray-haired, you mean to change your long-lived locks, Take Mattiac balls — but why, when you're bald?

XXVIII. A Sunshade Take this parasol to beat the fierce sun: Even if there's wind, your own canopy will shield you.

XXIX. A Broad-Brimmed Hat I'll watch with you in the Pompeian theater: For often the man in charge denies the people the awnings.

XXX. Hunting-Spears They'll meet the boars and wait for the lions, They'll go in against bears, if only the hand be steady.

XXXI. A Hunting-Knife If you groan that your spear, with its long shaft, is knocked aside, This short blade will go at the huge boar hand to hand.

XXXII. A Belt-Dagger This will be the soldier's glory and an omen of welcome honor, A weapon fit to gird a tribune's side.

XXXIII. A Dagger A dagger, which a short groove marks with a curving vein. Salo dipped it, hissing, in his icy waters.

XXXIV. A Sickle A leader's settled peace bent me to gentle uses. Now I belong to the farmer; before, I was the soldier's.

XXXV. A Little Axe When the sad auction was held to pay off debts, This was bought for four hundred thousand.

XXXVI. Barber's Tools These tools are fit for trimming your hair; This one's good for long nails, that one for cheeks.

XXXVII. A Book-Box Unless you give me choice little books, I'll let in the moths and the savage worms.

XXXVIII. A Bundle of Reed-Pens The Memphian land gives reeds handy for paper; Let the rest of the marsh be woven into roofing for you.

XXXIX. A Bedroom Lamp The sweet lamp, confidante of your couch: Do whatever you please, I'll keep silent.

XL. A Tallow Candle Fortune gave you the lamp's handmaid, Who, wakeful, sees the whole darkness through.

XLI. A Many-Nozzled Lamp Since I light the whole banquet with my flames And carry so many nozzles, I am called a single lamp.

XLII. A Wax Candle This candle will give you fire by night: For your boy has filched away the lamp.

XLIII. A Corinthian Candelabrum Candles gave us our ancient name: The oily lamp knew nothing of our thrifty fathers.

XLIV. A Wooden Candelabrum You see it's wood; unless you watch the lights, you'll have A great blaze made out of your candelabrum.

XLV. A Peasant's Ball This peasant-ball that swells with stiff feathers Is less loose than the bladder-ball, less tight than the hard.

XLVI. A Triangle-Ball If you know how to drive me back with skilled left hands, I'm yours. You don't? Then, bumpkin, give back the ball.

XLVII. A Bladder-Ball Off with you, young men: a gentle age suits me: The bladder-ball befits boys at play, and old men.

XLVIII. Hand-Balls The swift athlete snatches these up in Antaeus' dust, Who makes his great neck big with futile toil.

XLIX. Dumb-Bells Why do strong arms waste themselves on the foolish dumb-bell? Digging a vineyard exercises men better.

L. An Oil-Cap Lest the foul wrestler's grease soil your shining hair, With this cap you can tuck away your oiled locks.

LI. Strigils Pergamon sent these. Scrape yourself with the curved iron: The fuller won't wear out your towels so often.

LII. A Horn Oil-Flask A bullock lately wore me on his brow: Yet you took me for true rhinoceros-horn.

LIII. A Rhinoceros Lately admired in our lord's Ausonian arena, Here for you is the one for whom the bull was a ball.

LIV. A Baby's Rattle If some wailing little home-born slave hangs at your neck, Let this chattering rattle shake in his tender hand.

LV. A Whip You'll get nowhere with this whip, lash as you will, If a horse of the purple team runs for you.

LVI. Tooth-Powder What have I to do with you? Let a girl take me: I'm not used to polishing bought-in teeth.

LVII. Behen-Nut Oil What neither Virgil nor Homer names in song, This is made of perfume and of the behen-nut.

LVIII. Saltpetre-Foam Are you a rustic? You don't know my Greek name: I'm called "foam of nitre." Are you Greek? Then aphronitrum.

LIX. Balsam-Oils Balsams enchant me; these are the perfumes of men: Reek of Cosmus' luxuries, you young wives.

LX. Bean-Meal Wash A welcome gift it will be, and not useless to a chafed belly, If you seek Stephanus' baths by broad daylight.

LXI. A Horn Lantern I, the road's guide, am carried golden, my flame shut in, And the small lamp is safe in my bosom.

LXII. A Bladder-Lantern If I'm not horn, am I any dingier? Or does the man Who comes against me take me for a bladder?

LXIII. Pipes The drunken flute-girl splits us with her dripping cheeks: Often she has two at once, often a single pipe.

LXIV. A Reed-Pipe Why do you laugh at me, joined of wax and reed? Such was the first pipe ever built.

LXV. Woolen Slippers If by chance there's no slave-boy and you fancy Putting on slippers, the foot will be its own boy.

LXVI. A Breast-Band You could have bound your chest with a bull's hide: For that skin cannot hold those breasts of yours.

LXVII. A Peacock Fly-Whisk That which keeps the filthy flies from licking your lunch Was once the proud tail of an exquisite bird.

LXVIII. An Ox-Tail Fly-Whisk If your clothes get dirtied with yellow dust, Let this light tail brush it off with gentle strokes.

LXIX. A Rhodian Cake Don't strike your erring slave's teeth with your fist: Let him eat the cake bright Rhodes sent you.

LXX. A Priapus of Wheat-Bread If you want to be full, you may eat our Priapus: Though you gnaw his very loins, you'll stay clean.

LXXI. A Pig This pig will make you a good Saturnalia, Fattened among the foaming boars on acorns.

LXXII. A Sausage The sausage that comes to you in midwinter's season Had come seven days before Saturn's feast.

LXXIII. A Parrot I, a parrot, will learn from you the names of others: This I've learned to say of myself — "Hail, Caesar."

LXXIV. A Crow Crow, the greeter — why are you held a fellator? No member has ever entered your head.

LXXV. A Nightingale Philomela weeps the crime of incestuous Tereus, and she Who was a speechless girl is now a chattering bird.

LXXVI. A Magpie I, the talking magpie, greet you, my master, with sure voice: If you didn't see me, you'd deny I'm a bird.

LXXVII. An Ivory Cage If you have such a bird as Catullus' beloved Lesbia wept for, here it can live.

LXXVIII. A Medicine-Case You see the medicine-case of the healing art: you'll have Gifts that Paccius would wish were his own.

LXXIX. Whips Play, wanton slaves, but only play: These are sealed up for me, just for the five days.

LXXX. Canes Hated too much by boys, dear to schoolmasters, We are the wood made famous by Prometheus' gift.

LXXXI. A Beggar's Wallet Lest it bring a beggar's lunch to the bearded naked man, And sleep with a surly dog, the wallet asks for alms.

LXXXII. Brooms The palm-broom bears witness it once was prized. But now the cleaner-up has left the broom at leisure.

LXXXIII. An Ivory Back-Scratcher This hand will guard your shoulders from the biting nuisance Of the flea, or anything fouler than a flea.

LXXXIV. A Book-Rest Lest your toga or cloak make your books bristle, This fir will give your scrolls a long span of life.

LXXXV. A Peacock-Couch The bird of Juno gives the bed-frame its most lovely name With its painted feathers — but it was Argus before.

LXXXVI. A Saddle-Cloth Hunter, take the housing for your girt-up cob: For a sore tends to rise from a bare horse.

LXXXVII. A Dining-Couch Take the crescent-couch inlaid with horn: It seats eight; let whoever is your friend come.

LXXXVIII. A Relish-Tray If you believe a female tortoise is set in me, You're deceived: I'm the male prey of the sea.

LXXXIX. A Citron-Wood Table Take these blessed woods, gifts of Atlas: Whoever gives gifts of gold will give less.

XC. A Maple Table I'm not curl-grained, nor a daughter of the Moorish wood, But my wood too has known elegant feasts.

XCI. Ivory Tusks You who carry the bulls' great bodies, you ask Whether they could have borne up Libya's beams?

XCII. A Five-Foot Rule The holm-oak rule, marked with points and closed with a sharp tip, Often serves to expose the contractor's frauds.

XCIII. Antique Cups This is no recent glory, nor work of our chisel: Mentor was the first to drink from these, while he made them.

XCIV. Bold Cups We are the plebeian embossed-ware of bold glass, And our jewel is not cracked by boiling water.

XCV. A Chased Golden Bowl Though I redden, high-born, with Galician metal, I glory more in the art: for this is Mys' labor.

XCVI. Vatinian Cups Take the cheap memorial of the cobbler Vatinius — A cup; but his nose was longer.

XCVII. Gold-Inlaid Platters Don't disgrace the big gold platters with a little mullet: At the very least it should weigh two pounds.

XCVIII. Arretine Ware We warn you, don't too much scorn Arretine ware: Porsena was elegant with Tuscan earthenware.

XCIX. A Basket I, a basket, came barbarian from the painted Britons; But now Rome would rather call me her own.

C. A Drinking-Bowl If the land of learned Catullus is not unknown to you, You've drunk Raetian wines from my crock.

CI. A Mushroom-Dish Though mushrooms have given me so noble a name, I serve — for shame, alas! — the first-cut cabbage-shoots.

CII. Surrentine Cups Take cups born from no cheap dust, But the smooth chiseled work of the Surrentine wheel.

CIII. A Snow-Strainer Break my Setine wine, I advise, with our snow: With cheaper wine you can wet the linen.

CIV. A Snow-Bag Our linens too know how to thin the snow: No water leaps from your strainer colder.

CV. Serving-Jugs Cold won't be wanting, nor hot, to him who asks. But you — spare us your game of fastidious thirst.

CVI. An Earthen Pitcher Here a red pitcher with a splayed handle is given you. The Stoic Fronto used to ask for cold water in this.

CVII. Wine-Baskets The Satyrs love us, Bacchus loves us, the drunken tigress, Trained to lick its master's drenched feet.

CVIII. Saguntine Cups What no anxious servant need hold and keep, Take — cups made of Saguntine clay.

CIX. Jeweled Cups See how the gold gleams jeweled with Scythian fires. How many fingers this cup has stripped!

CX. A Drinking-Flask From this jewel, which keeps the name of Cosmus, You may drink, voluptuary, if your thirst is for spikenard.

CXI. Crystal Ware While you fear to break it, you'll break the crystal: hands Too careless and too anxious both go wrong.

CXII. A Glass Storm-Cloud The cloud that comes from Jove will pour rich waters For mixing in the cups: this will give you wine.

CXIII. Murra-Ware If you drink hot, the murra suits burning Falernian And the flavor turns out better than the neat wine.

CXIV. A Cuman Bowl This bowl, ruddy with Cuman clay, The chaste Sibyl sent you, her fellow townswoman.

CXV. Glass Cups You see the wit of the Nile: how often, while its maker Longs to add more, ah, he has ruined the work!

CXVI. A Snow-Flask You drink Spoletine, or wine laid down in Marsian cellars: What do you want with the noble chill of boiled water?

CXVII. The Same Not to drink snow, but to drink fresh water Brewed from snow — that is ingenious thirst's invention.

CXVIII. The Same Mixing the smoke of Massilia with snow-cooled waves — Go easy, boy, lest your water cost you more.

CXIX. An Earthen Chamber-Pot While I'm called for with a snap of fingers and the slave delays, Oh, how often the bolster has become my rival!

CXX. A Silver Spoon Though knights and senators call me a ligula, The unschooled grammarians call me a lingula.

CXXI. Snail-Spoons I'm handy for snails, but no less useful for eggs. Do you know, then, why I'm rather called a snail-spoon?

CXXII. Rings Once a frequent, now a rare, friend gives us. Happy the man whose comrade is a knight not stranger-born.

CXXIII. A Ring-Case Often the heavy ring slips from greasy fingers, But your gem will be safe in my keeping.

CXXIV. A Toga The Romans, lords of the world, the nation of the gown, He made, who gave the stars to his great father.

CXXV. The Same If you find it easy to lose your morning sleep, The dole will often come with a threadbare toga.

CXXVI. A Greatcoat It's a poor man's gift, but no poor man's use: This greatcoat we send you in place of a mantle.

CXXVII. Dark Canusian Wool This Canusian, just like clouded mead, Will be your gift. Be glad: it won't soon turn old.

CXXVIII. A Hooded Cape Gaul clothes you in a Santonian hooded cape. It was lately the cloak of long-tailed monkeys.

CXXIX. Red Canusian Wool Rome dresses more in dark, Gaul in red, And this color pleases boys and soldiers.

CXXX. A Leather Cape Though you set out on the road under an ever-clear sky, Let the leather never fail you against sudden rains.

CXXXI. Scarlet Cloaks If you back the Blues or Greens, why take scarlet? Take care lest that lot make you a turncoat.

CXXXII. A Felt Cap If I could, I'd wish to have sent whole cloaks: As it is, I send a gift only for your head.

CXXXIII. Baetic Cloaks My wool tells no lies, I'm not changed in the cauldron. Let Tyrian dyes please thus: my own sheep dyed me.

CXXXIV. A Breast-Band Band, hold in check your mistress' growing breasts, So that there be something for our hand to grasp and cover.

CXXXV. White Cloaks We commend ourselves by their use at the amphitheater, When the white cloak covers the chilly togas.

CXXXVI. Dinner-Clothes We know no courts and no court-summonses: Our task is to recline on painted couches.

CXXXVII. A Neck-Wrap If perhaps I give you a little book to recite, Let this neck-wrap stand surety for your ears.

CXXXVIII. A Frieze-Mantle In wintertime smooth fabrics are not much use: My shaggy nap warms your cloaks.

CXXXIX. A Hand-Towel Let shaggy linens better guard your citron table: There can be a ring-mark on our table-tops.

CXL. Liburnian Hoods You never knew, you fool, how to attach cloaks to us: You'd put on white — strip off the green ones.

CXLI. Cilician Foot-Socks No wool gave these, but the beard of a smelly he-goat: The sole can hide in the Cinyphian fold.

CXLII. A Dinner-Suit While the toga is glad to rest through the five days, You may by your own right put on this attire.

CXLIII. Paduan Tunics Paduan triple-weaves use up much wool, And a saw could cut the thick tunics.

CXLIV. A Sponge This sponge falls to you by lot, useful for wiping tables, Light as it is when it swells with squeezed-out water.

CXLV. A Frieze Cloak Such whiteness is in me, such grace of nap, That you'd want to put me on even in mid-harvest.

CXLVI. A Bolster Dip your head in Cosmus' nard, and the bolster will smell of it: When the hair loses the perfume, the feather keeps it.

CXLVII. Frieze Bed-Coverlets The shaggy spreads gleam with purple tapestries. What use, if your old wife freezes you?

CXLVIII. Blankets Lest the bare couch lie open with no spread, We sisters have come, joined, to you.

CXLIX. A Shoulder-Wrap I fear the big-bosomed; hand me to a tender girl, That the linen may enjoy a snow-white breast.

CL. Damask Bedspreads This the Memphian land gives you as a gift: Babylon's needle Is already beaten by the loom of the Nile.

CLI. A Girdle I'm long enough now; but if the belly swells With a sweet weight, I'll become a short girdle for you.

CLII. A Square Coverlet The land of learned Catullus sends you blankets: We come from the region of Helicaon.

CLIII. A Half-Apron Let the rich man give a tunic: I can gird you up. Were I rich, I'd give both gifts.

CLIV. Amethystine Wools Drunk as I am with the blood of the Sidonian shell, I don't see why I should be called a sober wool.

CLV. White Wools Apulia is noble for first-rate fleeces, Parma for the second; The Altinum sheep wins praise for the third.

CLVI. Tyrian Wools A shepherd gave us to his Spartan love: The purple of mother Leda was inferior.

CLVII. Pollentine Wools This land yields not only mourning wools of dark fleece, But it is wont to give its own cups as well.

CLVIII. The Same A drab wool, true, but made for the sheared attendants — The sort the table does not summon from the first rank.

CLIX. Leuconian Stuffing Is the cover too close upon the pressed-down feathers? Take fleece scraped from the Leuconian saddle-cloths.

CLX. Circus Stuffing Chopped marsh-reed is called Circus stuffing. The poor man buys this litter in place of Leuconian.

CLXI. Down Weary, you can rest on Amyclaean down, Given you by the inner wool of the swan.

CLXII. Hay Let the frail mattress swell for you, the mule cheated of its feed. Pale care does not come to a hard bed.

CLXIII. A Bell Give back the ball: the bath-bell sounds. You keep on playing? You want to go home washed by the Virgin spring alone.

CLXIV. A Discus When the gleaming weights of the Spartan discus fly, Keep away, boys: let it harm only once.

CLXV. A Lyre It gave Eurydice back to the bard: but he lost her, Trusting himself too little, loving without patience.

CLXVI. The Same Often it was thrown out of the Pompeian theater — The lyre that led the woods and held the beasts spellbound.

CLXVII. A Plectrum Lest a hot blister rise on your rubbed thumb, Let a white plectrum adorn the docile lyre.

CLXVIII. A Hoop The wheel must be set rolling: you give us a useful gift: This hoop is for boys, but for me it will be music.

CLXIX. The Same Why does the chattering ring wander round the loose circle? So the crowd it meets may yield to the tinkling hoops.

CLXX. A Golden Statue of Victory This is given him without a lot, on whom the Rhine Bestowed a true name. Pour ten cups of Falernian, boy.

CLXXI. An Earthenware "Boy of Brutus" The glory of so small a statuette is not obscure: Brutus was the lover of this boy.

CLXXII. A Corinthian "Lizard-Slayer" Spare the lizard creeping toward you, treacherous boy: It longs to perish by your fingers.

CLXXIII. A Painted Hyacinthus on a Panel The Oebalian boy turns his dying eyes from the hated discus — Phoebus' fault and grief.

CLXXIV. A Marble Hermaphroditus Male he entered the spring, and rose up both: One part has the father's, the rest the mother's.

CLXXV. A Painted Danaë Why did Danaë take a price from you, ruler of Olympus, If Leda gave herself to you for nothing?

CLXXVI. A German Mask I am a potter's joke, the mask of a redheaded Batavian. The face you laugh at, a child fears.

CLXXVII. A Corinthian Hercules The infant crushes the twin snakes and does not even look: Already the Hydra might have feared his tender hands.

CLXXVIII. An Earthenware Hercules I'm fragile: but you, I warn you, don't scorn the statuette: Alcides is not ashamed to bear my name.

CLXXIX. A Silver Minerva Tell me, fierce maiden, since you have helmet and spear, Why have you no aegis? "Caesar has it."

CLXXX. A Painted Europa You could have done better to change into a bull, best father of gods, Back then, when Io was a heifer to you.

CLXXXI. A Marble Leander Bold Leander cried out amid the swelling waves: "Drown me, you floods, when I am on my way back."

CLXXXII. An Earthenware Figure of a Hunchback Drunk, I think, Prometheus made these monsters on earth: He too played with the Saturnalia's clay.

CLXXXIII. Homer's Battle of the Frogs Read right through the frogs sung in Maeonian song, And learn to unknit your brow over my trifles.

CLXXXIV. Homer on Parchment Tablets The Iliad and Ulysses, foe to Priam's realm, Lie hidden, stored together in many a fold of skin.

CLXXXV. Virgil's Gnat Take, eager reader, the Gnat of eloquent Virgil, Lest, the nuts put aside, you read "Arms and the man."

CLXXXVI. Virgil on Parchment How small a parchment holds the boundless Virgil! The first leaf bears his very face.

CLXXXVII. Menander's Thaïs With this play he first toyed with the wanton loves of youth; Glycera was no boy's mistress — Thaïs was.

CLXXXVIII. Cicero on Parchment If this parchment is your companion, imagine You're traveling long roads in Cicero's company.

CLXXXIX. Propertius' Monobiblos Cynthia — the youthful song of eloquent Propertius — Won fame, and gave no less than she received.

CXC. Livy on Parchment Vast Livy is compressed into scanty skins, Whom my library cannot hold whole.

CXCI. Sallust This man, as the hearts of learned men declare, Crispus, will be the first in Roman history.

CXCII. Ovid's Metamorphoses on Parchment This mass, built up of many-folded leaves, Carries Naso's fifteen books of song.

CXCIII. Tibullus Wanton Nemesis fired her lover Tibullus, Whom it pleased to be nothing in his whole house.

CXCIV. Lucan There are some who say I am no poet: But the bookseller who sells me thinks I am.

CXCV. Catullus Great Verona owes as much to her Catullus As little Mantua to her Virgil.

CXCVI. Calvus' "On the Use of Cold Water" This paper, which tells you of springs and the names of waters, Itself swam better in its own waters once.

CXCVII. Dwarf Mules You need fear no fall from these mules: You often sit nearly higher on the ground.

CXCVIII. A Gallic Lapdog If you want to hear the charms of the little lapdog, The whole page is too short for my telling.

CXCIX. An Asturian Pony This little Asturian, who gathers his swift hoof to the beat, Came from the gold-bearing tribes.

CC. A Greyhound The keen greyhound hunts not for himself but for his master, And will bring you the hare unharmed in his teeth.

CCI. A Wrestling-Master I don't love him for winning, but because he knows how to lose And has better learned the art of the bedroom-bout.

CCII. An Ape The clever ape, dodging the spears flung at me — If I had a tail, I'd be a long-tailed monkey.

CCIII. A Girl from Cadiz She wriggles so quivering, itches so caressing, that she'd make A masturbator of Hippolytus himself.

CCIV. Cymbals The bronze that mourns the Celaenaean loves of the Mother, The hungry Gallus is often wont to sell.

CCV. A Boy Let mine be a boy smooth by his years, not by pumice, For whose sake no girl can please me.

CCVI. A Love-Girdle Bind to your neck, boy, pure love itself, A girdle warm from Venus' bosom.

CCVII. The Same Take the girdle steeped in Cytherean nectar: This belt fired even Jove, the lover.

CCVIII. A Shorthand-Writer Though the words run fast, the hand is faster still: The tongue has not yet finished, the right hand has.

CCIX. A Cuttlefish-Shell Let the light Mareotic bark be made of a sea-shell: The reed-pen will run an unhindered course.

CCX. A Fool His stupor is not feigned, nor cunningly counterfeited. Whoever is no wiser than he ought, he is wise.

CCXI. A Ram's Head You cut the soft neck of Phrixus' woolly mate. Did he deserve this, the cruel man who gave you a tunic?

CCXII. A Dwarf If you look only at the man's head, you'd think him Hector: If you see him standing, you'd take him for Astyanax.

CCXIII. A Shield This shield, often vanquished, rarely victorious, Will be your buckler, a dwarf's.

CCXIV. Boy Comic Actors None in the troupe will play your "Hated Man": But anyone can be your "Double Deceiver."

CCXV. A Buckle Tell me plainly, buckle, what you do for comic actors And lyre-singers. "Make them screw at a higher price."

CCXVI. A Fowler The bird is fooled not only by limed reeds but by song, While the cunning reed grows up in a silent hand.

CCXVII. A Hawk He was the robber of birds: now, the fowler's slave, the same one Decoys them, and grieves at the birds he catches not for himself.

CCXVIII. A Caterer Say how many you want for dinner and at what price, and don't add A single word: the dinner is ready for you.

CCXIX. An Ox-Heart Poor pleader, since you write poems that bring back No money, take the heart you have.

CCXX. A Cook Art alone is not enough for a cook: I don't want A slavish palate: a cook should have his master's taste.

CCXXI. A Grill with Spits Let the thin tidbit sweat for you on the curved grill; Let the foaming boar steam on the long spit.

CCXXII. A Pastry-Cook This man's hand will raise for you a thousand sweet Shapes of his craft: for him alone the thrifty bee toils.

CCXXIII. Lard-Cakes Get up: the baker is already selling boys their breakfasts, And the crested birds of dawn are crowing on every side.