EPIGRAMS: V.3 PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Martial,D. R. Shackleton Bailey | 396 pages | 06 Jan 1994 | HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS | 9780674995291 | English | Cambridge, Mass, United States Websters Dictionary - Webster's Dictionary - Epigram But do you season books for the Romans with racy salt; in you let human nature read and recognise its own manners. Although you may seem to be playing on but a slender reed, that reed will be better heard than the trumpets of many. Sat II. What a world of people, ye gods, is collected at the Roman altars, offering up prayer and vows for its ruler! These, Germanicus, are not the joys of men only; it seems to me that the gods themselves are celebrating a festival. You have given so many rings to young ladies, Macer, that you have none left for yourself. There is nothing more hateful than the antique vases of old Euctus. I prefer cups made of Saguntine clay. When the garrulous old man boasts the pedigrees of his smoky silver vessels, he makes even the wine seem musty with his talk. With this goblet fierce Rhoecus rushed to battle with the Lapitha; you see that the work has suffered in the struggle. This double vase is celebrated for having belonged to the aged Nestor; the doves upon it have been worn bright by the thumb of the hero of Pylos. This is the tankard in which Achilles ordered wine to be prepared for his friends with more than ordinary copiousness and strength. In this bowl the beauteous Dido drank the health of Bitias, at the entertainment given to the Phrygian hero. Is this pleading causes, Cinna? Is this speaking eloquently, to say nine words in ten hours? Just now you asked with a loud voice for four more clepsydra. Although, Janus, you give birth to the swiftly-rolling years, and recall with your presence centuries long past; and although you are the first to be celebrated with pious incense, saluted with vows, and adorned with the auspicious purple and with every honour; yet you prefer the glory, which has just befallen our city, of beholding its god return in your own month. Hylas, the blear-eyed, lately offered to pay you three quarters of his debt; now that he has lost one eye he offers you half. Hasten to take it; the opportunity for getting it may soon pass, for if Hylas should become blind, he will pay you nothing. Bassus has bought a cloak for ten thousand sesterces; a Tyrian one of the very best colour. He has made a good bargain. The Rhine now knows that you have arrived in your own city; for he too hears the acclamations of your people. Even the Sarmatian tribes, and the Danube, and the Getae, have been startled by the loudness of our recent exultations. While the prolonged expressions of joy in the sacred circus greeted you, no one perceived that the horses had started and run four times. No ruler, Caesar, has Rome ever so loved before, and she could not love you more, even were she to desire it. Do you ask why I am unwilling to marry a rich wife? It is because I am unwilling to be taken to husband by my wife. The mistress of the house should be subordinate to her husband, for in no other way, Priscus, will the wife and husband be on an equality. I bought what you called a fool for twenty thousand sesterces. Return me my money, Gargilianus; he is no fool at all. That your tender Cilician fruit trees may not suffer from frost, and that too keen a blast may not nip your young plants, glass frame-works, opposed to the wintry south winds, admit the sunshine and pure light of day without any detrimental admixture. But to me a cell is assigned with unglazed windows, in which not even Boreas himself would like to dwell. Is it thus, cruel man, that you would have your old friend live? I should be better sheltered as the companion of your trees. While the newly-acquired glory of the Pannonian campaign is the universal theme of conversation, and while every altar is offering propitious sacrifices to our Jupiter on his return, the people, the grateful knights, the senate, offer incense; and largesses from you for the third time enrich the Roman tribes. These modest triumphs, too, Rome will celebrate; nor will your laurels gained in peace be less glorious than your former triumphs in war, inasmuch as you feel assured of the sacred affection of your people. It is a prince's greatest virtue to know his own subjects. You, Cyperus, who were long a baker, now plead causes, and are seeking to gain two hundred thousand sesterces. But you squander what you get, and even go so far as to borrow more. You have not quitted your former profession, Cyperus: you make both bread and flour. I pleaded your cause, Sextus; having agreed to do so for two thousand sesterces. How is it that you have sent me only a thousand? If, Cirinius, you were to publish your epigrams, you might be my equal, or even, my superior, in the estimation of the reading public; but such is the respect you entertain for your old friend, that his reputation is dearer to you than your own. Just so did Virgil abstain from the style of the Calabrian Horace, although he was well able to excel even the odea of Pindar, and so too did he resign to Varius the praise of the Roman buskin, although he could have declaimed with more tragic power. Gold, and wealth, and estates, many a friend will bestow; one who consents to yield the palm in genius, is rare. Cinna does always act the poor man's part, And is not worth a groat. What needs such art? Old MS. Though you write two hundred verses every day, Varus, you recite nothing in public. You are unwise, and yet you are wise. Phosphorus Morning Star , bring back the day; why do you delay our joys? When Caesar is about to return, Phosphorus, bring back the day. Rome implores you. Is it that the sluggish wain of the tame Bootes is carrying you, that you come with axle so slow? You should rather snatch Cyllarus from Leda's twins; Castor himself would to-day lend you his horse. Why do you detain the impatient Titan? Already Xanthus and Aethon long for the bit, and the benign parent of Memnon is up and ready. Yet the lingering stars refuse to retreat before the shining light, and the moon is eager to behold the Ausonian ruler. Come, Caesar, even though it be night: although the stars stand still, day will not be absent from your people when you come. You invite me, Gallicus, to partake of a wild boar; you place before me a home-fed pig. I am a hybrid, Gallicus, if you can deceive me. I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged? If I chance in my timid and slender book to make any request of you, grant it, unless my pages are too presumptuous. Or, if you do not grant it, Caesar, still permit it to be made; Jupiter is never offended by incense and prayers. It is not he who fashions divine images in gold or marble, that makes them gods, but he who offers supplications to them. You have seen me very ill, Oppianus, only once: I shall often see you so. I shall see you often looking pale. The huntsman on the banks of the Ganges, looking pale as he fled on his Hyrcanian steed, never stood in fear, amid the Eastern fields, of so many tigers as your Rome, O Germanicus, has lately beheld. She could not even count the objects of her delight. Your arena, Caesar, has surpassed the triumphs of Bacchus among the Indians, and the wealth and magnificence of the conquering deity; for Bacchus, when he led the Indians captive after his chariot, was content with a single pair of tigers. He who makes presents to you, Gaurus, rich and old as you are, says plainly, if you have but sense and can understand him, "Die! Say, toga, rich present from my eloquent friend, of what flock were you the ornament and the glory? Did the grass of Apulia and Ledaean Phalantus 1 spring up for you, where Galaesus irrigatea the fields with waters from Calabria? Or did the Tartessian Guadalquivir, the nouriaher of the Iberian fold, wash you, when on the back of a lamb of Hesperia? Or has your wool counted the mouths of the divided Timavus, 2 of which the affectionate Cyllarus, now numbered with the stars, once drank? You it neither befitted to be stained with Amyclaean dye, nor was Miletus worthy to receive your fleece. You surpass in whiteness the lily, the budding flower of the privet, and the ivory which glistens on the hill of Tivoli. But though this be a present that vies with new-born snows, it is not more pure thin its giver Parthenius. I would not prefer to it the embroidered stuffs of proud Babylon, decorated with the needle of Semiramis; I should not admire myself more if dressed in the golden robe of Athamas, could Phrixus give me his Aeolian fleece. See B. He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity.