Book, as you enter Caesar’s laureled dwelling,
learn to speak chastely and more bashfully.
Begone, nude Venus! This book’s not for you.
May you, Caesar’s Minerva, come to me.
By giving rings to girls, you lost the right,
Macer, to own the gold ring of a knight.
Buying a first-rate purple cloak
for ten grand, Bassus made
a profit. “Was it such a bargain?”
No—he never paid.
You ask why I don’t want a wealthy wife?
To be her wife is more than I could bear.
A wife should be below her husband, Priscus,
for man and wife to be a well-matched pair.
Gargilianus, return my cash! I bought
your so-called fool for twenty grand. He’s not.
So your Cilician fruit trees won’t turn pale
in fear of winter, nor harsh breezes bite
your tender grove, glass panes block cold south winds,
admitting clear sun and unsullied light.
I get a room whose window’s stuck ajar,
where Boreas himself could get no rest.
You’d have an old friend lodge like this, you brute?
I’d be more sheltered as your orchard’s guest.
You were a baker long before;
Cyperus, you’re a lawyer now.
Each year you earn two hundred thou,
but spend it all and borrow more.
You’re still a baker now, although
you’re making flour out of dough.
I pled your case for two grand, as agreed,
so, Sextus, what’s this paltry thousand for?
“You didn’t state the facts, and you lost the case.”
I blushed, though, so for that you owe me more.
Cerrinius, if your epigrams were published,
you’d be my peer or even better known.
Yet such is your respect for an old friend,
you cherish my renown beyond your own.
So Vergil did not try the odes of Horace,
though in Pindaric measures he’d have shone;
he yielded fame for tragedy to Varius,
though he could better voice the tragic tone.
A friend will often give gold, wealth, and ground;
one who will yield in talent’s rarely found.
Cinna, who makes a show of poverty,
is just as poor as he pretends to be.
You write two hundred lines a day, but don’t recite.
Varus, you are wise, if none too bright.
You invite me for boar, but pork is what I’m fed.
I’m a hybrid, Gallicus, if I’m misled.
Because I beat my cook for spoiling dinner,
you think I’m picky, Rusticus, and rash.
If that seems insufficient cause for whipping,
for what, then, does a cook deserve the lash?
When I was quite ill, you called just once on me.
I’ll visit, Oppianus, frequently.
Gaurus, you’re old and rich. Those who stop by
with gifts (could you but know) are saying “Die.”
A couplet writer tries to please by terseness.
What good is brevity in a book of verses?
Dento, when you, who have a wife, petition
for rights reserved for men who’ve fathered three,
you’re making an unsavory admission.
Go home. Stop tiring Caesar with your plea.
While searching, long and far from the wife you spurn,
for three kids, you’ll find four on your return.
You lead such matching, equal lives—
the worst of husbands, worst of wives—
that it’s a mystery to me
why you aren’t suited perfectly.
Priapus, you guard not plots or vines,
but the sparse grove where you were born
and can be born again. Keep out
thieves’ hands and save the copse, I warn,
for its master’s fireplace: if it should
run short, you too are made of wood.
“Downhearted, Athenagoras hasn’t sent us
midwinter gifts as usual.” I’ll see
whether he’s gloomy later on, Faustinus.
One thing is certain: he has saddened me.
Chrestilla buries husbands; Fabius, wives.
Each waves the funeral torch at the marriage bed.
Pair up the winners, Venus. The result
will be that both will share a bier instead.
Part of your jaws is clipped, part shaved instead,
part plucked. Who’d think it’s all a single head?
Though Asper’s love, no doubt, is shaped to please,
he’s blind. He loves, in truth, more than he sees.
Loveliest of all girls who were or are,
of all who were or are, you’re most debased.
Catulla, how I wish you would become
less beautiful or—failing that—more chaste.
You often give great gifts and will give greater,
outdoing yourself and other leaders, too,
but people don’t adore you for your bounty:
Caesar, they love your gifts because of you.
You’d match Nero’s Colossus if you might
take eighteen inches, Claudia, from your height.
Charinus turns green with envy, bursts, fumes, cries,
and seeks to hang himself from a high bough,
not that I’m read throughout the world, nor that,
adorned with bosses and cedar oil, I’m now
spread through all nations Rome controls, but that
I own a rural summer home near town
and ride my mules, not rented ones, today.
What curse on him, Severus, should I call down?
May he own mules and a place near town, I pray.
Though Picens writes verses on backs of sheets, it galls him
that Phoebus turns his back while Picens scrawls them.
Vacerra, you admire the ancients only
and praise no poets but those here no more.
I beg that you will pardon me, Vacerra,
but pleasing you is not worth dying for.
“Tell me the truth, please, Marcus,” you implore.
“Nothing could be more welcome to my ear.”
Whenever you recite your books or plead
a client’s case, you’d have me be sincere.
It’s hard for me to turn down your request.
So, Gallicus, hear this truth, loud and clear:
the truth is not what you desire to hear.
Liber, beloved by friends, worthy of living
crowned with eternal roses, if you’re clever,
let your hair glisten with Assyrian scent
and floral garlands deck your head forever.
Let old Falernian darken your clear crystal,
a charming lover warm your downy bed.
Who’s lived thus, though he die in middle age,
has stretched his life beyond its granted thread.
All of your friends are ancient hags
or eyesores uglier than those.
These are the company you drag
to banquets, plays, and porticoes.
Fabulla, when you’re seen among
such friends, you’re beautiful and young.