English

He gave Consular wine when he asked me to dine,
" What! Opimius' vintage?" you say,
" 'Tis a brand of renown." Nay, my host laid it down,
And he was made consul to-day.

You dine on skate — or now and then
On greasy beans; what is the reason
That makes you send to other men
The rarest dainties of the season?

Boar, oysters, truffles, mullet, hare,
You give them. What an aberration,
To grudge yourself that generous fare
And spend your all on ostentation.

Present you with my books? Not I indeed.
I know you want to sell them, not to read.

To feasts and theatres you love to go
With men of rank and, when you chance to meet.
To lounge with them about a portico
Or street.

They let you bathe and dine with them, but what
Your dullard pride will never comprehend
Is that you are their mountebank, and not

One house upon the Esquiline,
One where patricians dwell,
And hard beside Diana's shrine
You have a third as well.

You live near mournful Cybele,
You've Vesta's fane in view;
Jove's ancient temple you can see,
You look upon the new.

With seven dwellings I despair
To find you when I call,
He who has mansions everywhere
Has not a home at all.

Be cautious how you recommend
My verses to your father, friend;
The merry quip, the sportive whim,
Might hurt a sober soul like him;
But if he likes my wanton work
'Twould pass an elder of the Kirk.

In Fabius' will sole legatee,
Why is not Labienus glad?
In courting the testator, he
Had spent far more than Fabius had.

You are weary and wan, yet the lawsuit drags on,
Now its twentieth year is complete.
So you must be a dunce; it had ended at once
Had you only admitted defeat.

You had won much renown as a barber in town
And then got a knighthood by fraud
Of an amorous lady — the business was shady
And led you to hurry abroad;
Now your living is gone and the years will drag on,
I pity your idle condition,
You cannot profess to teach grammar — much less
To be an expert rhetorician;
Philosophical preaching is vain, so is teaching,
No hope at the bar you can harbour,
And the claque is no good — so you can't if you would
Be anything else but a barber.

Con o'er his books that time shall not destroy,
His songs well worthy Rome; but, as ye read,
Deem not Pieria was his only joy,
That Bacchus' garland was his only meed,
Virgilian fire had touched him not, until
His golden tongue had earned a Tully's fame;
The forum looks with awe upon him still
And grateful clients still revere his name.
He ruled as consul through the wondrous year,
That year made holy by a world made free;
These tasks well wrought, the Muses held him dear
And now upon their mountain dwelleth he.