Why don’t I send my books to you?
For fear you’d send me your books, too.
Because his pallor, Castricus, got worse,
Oppianus started writing verse.
Cascellius is sixty, at his peak
in cleverness. When will he learn to speak?
You make me, Pudens, emend by hand
my small books’ imperfections.
You love me so—to want my trifles
with autograph corrections!
Dusky Lycoris went to Hercules’ hills on
hearing that old ivory turns white
in Tibur’s sun. How potent Tibur’s air is!
In no time, she returned as black as night.
Aulus, a monstrous evil has afflicted
my girl—she’s lost her plaything and her dear:
not like the one for whom Catullus’ Lesbia,
losing her naughty sparrow, shed a tear;
nor what Ianthis mourned (and Stella sang of ),
whose black dove flies now in Elysium.
My dear’s not charmed by trifles or such loves,
nor do such losses make her heart grow glum.
She’s lost a boy just twelve years old, whose dong
was not yet fully eighteen inches long.
Regulus, I’m broke. All I can try
is selling off your presents. Will you buy?
Since even a woman couldn’t fault your face
or flawless body, do you wonder why
a fucker rarely wants you and returns?
Galla, you have a glaring flaw. When I
get going and we move with loins united,
though you say nothing, your vagina’s noisy.
May the gods make you speak and it be silent!
The constant prattle of your twat annoys me.
I’d rather you farted. Symmachus says farting
is healthy, and it makes one laugh, besides.
But who can laugh at a cunt’s inane slip-slapping?
At that, one’s spirit (like one’s cock) subsides.
At least speak up; drown out your raucous twat,
or teach it how to talk if you will not.
What seems to you a scrap of useless wood
was the first keel to sail the unknown sea.
What neither Clashing Rocks nor the worse wrath
of the Black Sea could shatter formerly,
ages subdued. Though years have claimed their toll,
the small board’s more revered than the ship when whole.
This day, aware of a great birth, gave Lucan
to all the people, Polla, and to you.
Harsh Nero, loathed for no death more, this killing,
at least, the gods should not have let you do.
The epigrams you write are always bland
and paler than skin powdered with white lead,
without a grain of wit or drop of bile,
and still, you fool, you want them to be read!
A face without a dimple has no charm;
food is insipid, lacking vinegar’s zing.
Give honey apples and bland figs to toddlers;
I savor Chian figs, which know how to sting.
You sleep with Germans, Parthians, and Dacians;
Cilicians and Cappadocians get a screw;
a Memphian fucker sails to you from Pharos;
a coal-black Indian from the Red Sea, too.
You don’t shun pricks of circumcised Judeans;
a Scythian on his horse won’t pass you by.
Since you’re a Roman girl, why is it, Caelia,
you won’t give any Roman cock a try?
Loath to endure and suffer more
mornings of gadding all about
and haughty greetings from great men,
Caelius started feigning gout.
Wanting too much to prove it true,
he salves and swathes his healthy feet
and walks with paces slow and pained.
How potent is his skilled deceit!
His gout is now no longer feigned.
Cinna, to give me what I ask is best;
next best is to refuse without delay.
I love a giver, don’t resent refusers.
You neither give nor tell me no straightway.
You wish to grace your gift to me with verse
and outdo Homer with your eloquence.
Priscus, for days you torture both of us;
I suffer for your Thalia’s reticence.
Send poems and ringing elegies to those
with wealth; to poor men, give your gifts with prose.
Although he owns about three hundred tables,
Annius uses pageboys in their place.
The platters run right past; the dishes speed.
You fine lords, keep such banquets for yourselves:
a walking dinner puts me off my feed.
With doors ajar, you sodomize big youths
and would be caught, Hamillus, doing so,
lest freedmen, family slaves, and envious clients
gossip and carry stories. He who’d show
he isn’t sodomized does otherwise—
and often—when he’s sure there are no spies.
You dyke of dykes, Philaenis, rightly you
call that girl your “girlfriend” whom you screw.
You want free fucks, though you’re a hag and hideous.
You want to play and not to pay? Ridiculous!
If powerful men—at banquets, porticoes,
and plays—compete to have you by their side;
if every time they meet you, they’re delighted
to offer you a hot bath or a ride;
don’t get too vain about it, Philomusus.
They love not you, but pleasure you provide.
You demand my books as gifts. I won’t concede them.
Tucca, you want to sell them, not to read them.
One lizardfish tail, salt-cured, Papylus,
and oiled beans, if you’re dining well, are placed
before you. You send udder, mushrooms, oysters,
mullet, hare, boar. You’ve neither sense nor taste.
I just drank consular wine. You ask, Severus,
how old and generous it was? The wine
had been laid down when Priscus was the consul—
the very man with whom I’d come to dine.
“In this book, thirty poems are bad,” you state.
Lausus, if thirty are good, the book is great.
Circling Lupercus’ face, Eutrapelus cleared
his cheeks—while yet another beard appeared.
Sabellus, that you write some witty quatrains
and craft some couplets well earns my regard,
but no surprise. To write good epigrams
is easy, but to write a book is hard.
Go, lucky rose, and crown with your soft garland
my dear Appolinaris’ locks—and do
not fail to bind them when they’re white, years later.
For that, may Venus always cherish you.
Matho alleges that my book’s uneven.
He compliments my poems, if that’s true.
Calvinus and Umber write consistent books.
Consistent books are lousy through and through.
Eloquent Juvenal, look, I send you nuts
for the Saturnalia, from my small plot’s stock.
Its guardian god bestowed the rest of the crop
on wanton girls, to sate his lustful cock.
Twice or thrice daily, Baccara, you tell me,
“You know you needn’t ask, whatever you need.”
Surly Secundus duns me in harsh tones:
you hear it, and you don’t know what I need.
My rent’s sought, in your presence, loud and clear:
you hear it, and you don’t know what I need.
I grumble that my cloak is worn and chilly:
you hear it, and you don’t know what I need.
Here’s what I need: a star to strike you mute,
so that you can’t repeat “whatever you need.”
Once perfume, while the onyx vial held it,
it’s fish sauce now that Papylus has smelled it.