English

Guide of our wayward youth, whose golden tongue
Is Rome's delight and boast, if I am wrong
In making haste to live whilst poor and young,
Forgive me; others dally all too long;
These gather gold beyond their fathers' dreams,
Ancestral busts their crowded halls might fill —
To me my smoke-stained cot more pleasant seems,
The earth's wild verdure and the running rill,
A comely slave, a kind but simple wife,
Nights of soft sleep and days unmarred of strife.

Trick verses I would never plan — that is not my endeavour;
My lines read backwards will not scan on any scheme whatever;
You will not hear in verse of mine that feeble iteration
Whereby doth echo tag each line — a Greek abomination.
And though no Attis here shall spout smooth doggerel — you know it?
'Tis sound with all the sense left out — am I so vile a poet?
What if one bade a runner try contortions acrobatic?
Ask Ladas this, and his reply methinks will be emphatic.
A silly task it is to make all difficulties double,

A WICKER flask with water iced inside
I send you as my gift this Christmas-tide.
You'll say perhaps it does not suit the season.
I want a summer suit: that is the reason.

Why maim your slave by cutting out
The wretch's tongue, you brute,
When all the city talks about
Your crimes — though he is mute?

Your fish won't keep in Summer-time? Why not?
You can't have tried the baths that you call hot.

Try greasing wheels: your taste reveals
You might be fit for that:
Nay, truth to tell, 'twould suit you well
Because your wits are fat.

For length you damn my epigram!
Is Brutus' boy too small?
Your critic eyes perhaps despise
Colossus as too tall?

'Tis plain indeed you never read
Marsus or Pedo sage;
One piece of each will often reach
Beyond a single page.

A word remove and I will prove
You do my poem wrong.
Your couplets are too long by far —
That is two lines too long.

One simple trick I note in you,
That when I read a verse or two,
You instantly begin to quote
Catullus or some bard of note;
You mean to compliment my verse
Perhaps by citing something worse,
And though the contrast flatters me
With its inferiority —
Assuming this intent alone,
'Twere better you should quote your own.

All dinner invitations grieve you?
I'm sorry, sir, I can't believe you.
The famous epicures of Rome
Were always pleased to dine from home.
Why, if it bores you, should you go?
" I must," you say — Ah yes, we know
All parasites that plea advance.
But if you're serious, now's your chance:
Friend Melior bids you dine to-day,
So play the man and say him nay.

Once at the Bar a longing look you cast,
Anon 'twas rhetoric you thought inspiring,
Now you are Nestor's age, and nearly past
The time when others think about retiring.
Begin, if rhetoric attracts you greatly,
There's room for teachers — three have died just lately.

But should you think you lack the teacher's skill
Or spirit, or are doubtful of succeeding,
The courts have seethed with litigants, until
The Marsyas himself might turn to pleading.
Delay no more — we're growing tired of waiting —

Your capital was always small,
Yet in the mart you gave
The thousand pounds that made your all
To buy a pretty slave.

For love that price was high to pay
E'en with a bulging purse.
What's that? You're not in love you say —
That makes the matter worse.