" WHERE 's number ONE," you say, " if this book's TWO?"
My first is shy, so what am I to do?
But if in this the First you'd rather see,
Take one away, and then it ONE will be.

Now with the rights of children three
Caesar rewards my Muse and me,
And mateless I'll remain.
The boon that one alone can give
By his divine prerogative
Must not be made in vain.

Thou glory of the world, our destinies,
Our very faith in heaven, are stayed on thee.
Should verse of mine find favour in thine eyes,
Though often writ in haste, 'twill plead for me:
Grant me a father's right; though fate's decree
Deny me fatherhood, that wrong redress;
If I have failed, may this my comfort be,
And this the generous guerdon of success.

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.

I CAN pardon your habit of spending the night
O'er the wine-cup; for Cato in that did delight.
And though with your verses the Muses you sully,
I praise them; for here you take pattern by Tully,
When you vomit, you do as Mark Antony did;
And your greed by Apicius' shadow is hid.
But when you indulge in your beastliest tricks,
To find you a model I'm quite in a fix.

You never recite, though you pose as a poet.
Well, for that many thanks: we will gladly forgo it.

You pretend for your kisses the girls are athirst,
With your cheeks, like a diver's, just ready to burst.

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.

M OLLIS erat facilisque uiris Poeantius heros:
Uolnera sic Paridis dicitur ulta Venus.
Cur lingat cunnum Siculus Sertorius, hoc est:
Ab hoc occisus, Rufe, uidetur Eryx.