Confound
me, if I think you know what vigour is.
Martial - Book XI - Epigrams
LV. TO URBICUS, ON LUPUS, A KNAVISH FLATTERER.
When Lupus exhorts you, Urbicus, to become a father, do not believe that he means what he says; there is nothing that he desires less. It is part of the art of flattery to seem to wish what you do not wish. He earnestly desires that you may not do what he begs you to do. Were your Cosconia but to say that she is pregnant, Lupus would grow paler than a woman when her hour is come. But, that you may seem to have adopted the advice of your friend, die in such a way that he may imagine you have really become a father.
LVI. TO CHAEREMON.
When you extol death in such extravagant terms, Stoic Chaeremon, you wish me to admire and respect your spirit. Such magnanimity arises from your possession of only a pitcher with a broken handle, a cheerless hearth, warmed with no fire, a mat, plenty of fleas, a bare bedstead, and a short toga that serves you both night and day. How great a man you are, that can think of abandoning dregs of red vinegar, and straw, and black bread. But let your cushions swell with Leuconian wool, and soft purple covers adorn your couches; and let a favourite share your couch, who, when mixing the Caecuban wine for your guests, tortures them with the ruddiest of lips, how earnestly then will you desire to live thrice as long as Nestor; and study to lose no part of a single day! In adversity it is easy to despise life; the truly brave man is he who can endure to be miserable.
LVII. TO SEVERUS.
Do you wonder, learned Severus, that I send you verses when I ask you to dine with me? Jupiter lives luxuriously on ambrosia and nectar; and yet we propitiate him with raw entrails and plain wine. Seeing that by the favour of heaven every blessing is yours, what can be offered you, if you are unwilling to receive what you already have?
LVIII. TO TELESPHORUS.
[Not translated in the Bohn except by the verse translation, which gives the general sense; Ker's translation in the Loeb is also misleading]
When with desire you see me racked,
The beggar's part you always act;
And if I grant not on the spot
Whatever you ask, you'll kiss me not.
Suppose my barber, steel in hand,
Should liberty and wealth demand,
I yield of course, for he is then
No barber, but a highwayman.
But, when his razor's in its case,
I'd have him flogged till black in the face.
And you, though you may think it odd,
When I've kissed you, shall kiss my rod.
W. S. B.
LIX. ON CLEARINUS.
Clearinus wears six rings on each of his fingers, and never takes them off; even at night, or when he bathes. Do you ask the reason? He has no ring-case. 1
1 He has his rings on hire.
LX. ON CHIONE AND PHLOGIS.
Is Phlogis or Chione the more fitted for dalliance, do you ask? More beautiful is Chione, but Phlogis has an itch; she has an itch that would rejuvenate Priam's powers and would not permit the aged Pylian 1 to be aged; she has an itch that every man wishes his own mistress to have, one Criton can cure, not Hygeia 2. But Chione is impassive, nor does she encourage you by any wooing word: you would fancy she were away from you, or were a marble status. Ye gods, were it permitted to prevail on you to bestow so great a gift, and were ye willing to give a blessing so precious, you would make Phlogis to have this body that Chione has, and Chione the itch that Phlogis has!
Not translated in the Bohn; this is Ker's version.
1 Nestor, the stereotypical old man.
2 Criton was a male doctor of Martial's time; Hygeia the goddess of health and daughter of Aesculapius here represents female doctors generally.
LXI. ON MANNEIUS.
[Not translated in either Bohn or Ker]
LXII. ON LESBIA.
Lesbia protests that no one has ever obtained her favours without payment. That is true; when she wants a lover, she herself pays.
LXIII. TO PHILOMUSUS.
[Not translated in the Bohn; evasively translated in Ker]
LXIV. TO FAUSTUS.
I do not know, Faustus, what it is that you write to so many girls. But this I know, that no girl writes anything to you.
LXV. TO JUSTINUS.
Six hundred people are invited to dine with you, Justinus, to celebrate the day on which you first saw the light; and among these, I remember, I used once not to be the last; nor was my position attended with envy. But your intention now is to offer me the honours of your festive board to-morrow; to-day you have a birth-day for the hundreds, to-morrow you will have one for me.
LXVI. TO VACERRA.
You are an informer, a calumniator, a forger, a secret agent, a slave to the unclean, and a trainer of gladiators. I wonder, Vacerra, why you have no money.
LXVII. TO MARO.
You give me nothing while you are living; you say that you will give me something at your death. If you are not a fool, Maro, you know what I desire.
Maro, you'll give me nothing while you live,
But after death you cry then, then you'll give:
If you are not indeed turned arrant ass,
You know what I desire to come to pass.
Fletcher.
LXVIII. TO MATHO.
You ask but small favours of your great friends; yet your great friends refuse you even small favours. That you may feel less ashamed, Matho, ask great favours.
LXIX. EPITAPH ON A HOUND NAMED LYDIA.
Nurtured among the trainers of the amphitheatre, bred up for the chase, fierce in the forest, gentle in the house, I was called Lydia, a most faithful attendant upon my master Dexter, who would not have preferred to me the hound of Erigone, or the dog which followed Cephalus from the land of Crete, and was translated with him to the stars of the light-bringing goddess. I died, not of length of years, nor of useless old age, as was the fate of the hound of Ulysses; I was killed by the fiery tooth of a foaming boar, as huge as that of Calydon or that of Erymanthus. Nor do I complain, though thus prematurely hurried to the shades below; I could not have died a nobler death.
LXX. TO TUCCA.
Can you, Tucca, sell these slaves whom you bought for a hundred thousand sesterces a-piece? Can you sell the weeping despots of your affections, Tucca? Do neither their caresses nor their words and untutored lamentations, or the necks wounded by your tooth move you? Ah, shame! Lift the tunic of either, . . . . 1 If a quantity of hard cash is your object, sell your plate, your tables, your myrrhine vases, your estate, your house. Sell aged slaves -- they will pardon --, sell too your paternal slaves; sell everything, wretched man, to avoid selling your young favourites. It was extravagance to buy them; who denies or doubts it? ----but it is far greater extravagance to sell them. 2
Inaccurately translated in the Bohn with various passages omitted without indication.
1 Ah facinus! tunica patet inguen utrinque levata,
Inspiciturque tua mentula facta manu.
2 Comp. B. ii. Ep. 63.
LXXI. ON LEDA.
Leda told her aged husband that she was hysterical, and regrets that intercourse is necessary for her; yet with tears and groans she says her health is not worth the sacrifice, and declares she would rather choose to die. Her lord bids her live, and not desert the bloom of her years, and he permits to be done what he cannot do himself. Immediately male doctors come in, and female doctors depart, and her feet are hoisted. Oh, what stringent treatment!
Not translated in the Bohn. The above is adapted from Ker.
LXXII. ON NATA.
[Not translated in the Bohn or Ker]
LXXIII. TO LYGDUS.
[Not translated in the Bohn]
LXXIV. ON BACCARA.
Baccara, a Rhaetician, entrusted the care of his ____ to a doctor, his rival in love; Baccara will be a gallus.
Not translated in the Bohn. This version based on Ker. A gallus was a eunuch priest of Cybele.
LXXV. TO CAELIA.
[Not translated in the Bohn]
LXXVI. TO PACTUS.
You oblige me to pay you eighty pounds, Pactus, because Bucco has occasioned you the loss or sixteen hundred. Let me not, I pray you, suffer for faults not my own. It is rather for you, who can support the loss of sixteen hundred, to submit to that of eighty.
LXXVII. ON VACERRA.
Vacerra, while passing his hours in everybody's dining-room, and sitting there all day long, desires not to empty his belly, but to fill it.
LXXVIII. TO VICTOR.
[Not translated in the Bohn or Ker].
LXXIX. TO PAETUS, ON THE SLOWNESS OF HIS MULES.
For arriving only at the first milestone after nine hours' travelling, I am charged with idleness and inactivity. The fault is not mine, I assure you, but your own, in sending me such mules, Paetus.
LXXX. TO FLACCUS, AT BAIAE.
Though, Flaccus, I were to praise Baiae, golden shore of the blessed Venus, Baiae, kind gift of Nature who is proud of it, in a thousand verses, yet would not Baiae be praised as it deserves. But, Flaccus, I prefer Martial1 to Baiae. To with far both at once would be presumptuous. But if by the kindness of the gods, that blessing were granted you, what happiness would it be to enjoy Martial's powers and the climate of Baiae at the same time!
1 That is, himself. He had rather mind his own business at home, than join Flaccus at Baiae to be enervated by its luxury.
LXXXI. ON AN OLD MAN AND A EUNUCH.
[Not translated in the Bohn or Ker]
LXXXII. ON PHILOSTRATUS.
Philostratus, returning to his lodging late at night, from a feast at Sinuessa, famed for its waters, very nearly lost his life, imitating Elpenor1 in his cruel fate, by rolling headlong down the whole length of a flight of stairs. He would not, you nymphs of Sinuessa, have incurred so great a danger, had he in preference drunk of your waters. 2
1 Who was killed by falling from the roof of Circe's cave. Odyss. B. x. 550.
2 Which were said to have such a sobering effect, that they cured even madness. Plin. H. N. xxxi. 2.
LXXXIII. TO SOSIBIANUS.
Nobody lodges in your house gratis, unless he be rich and childless. No one, Sosibianus, lets lodgings to more profit.
LXXXIV. ON ANTIOCHUS, AN UNSKILFUL BARBER.
Let him who does not wish yet to descend to the waters of Styx, avoid, if he be wise, the barber Antiochus. The knives with which, when the maddened troop of Cybele's priests rage to the sound of Phrygian measures, their white arms are lacerated, are less cruel than the razor of Antiochus. More gently does Alcon cut a strangulated hernia, and hew broken bones with his rude hand. Antiochus should deal with needy Cynics, and the beards of Stoics, and denude the necks of horses of their dusty manes. If he were to shave Prometheus under the Scythian rock, the Titan would again, with bared breast, demand his executioner the vulture. Pentheus would flee to his mother, Orpheus to the priestesses of Bacchus, were they to bear but a sound from the barbarous weapon of Antiochus. All these scars, that you count upon my chin, like those that sit upon the brow or an aged boxer, were not produced by the nails of an enraged wife, but by the steel and cursed hand of Antiochus. Of all animals the goat alone has any sense; he wears his beard, that he may not risk himself under the hands of Antiochus.
LXXXV. TO ZOILUS.
[Not translated in the Bohn or Ker]
LXXXVI. TO PARTHENOPAEUS.
To relieve your throat, Parthenopaeus, which is incessantly inflamed by a severe cough, your doctor prescribes honey, and nuts, and sweet cakes, and everything that is given to children to prevent them from being unruly. But you do not give over coughing all day long. A cough is not your malady, Parthenopaeus; it is gluttony.
LXXXVII. TO CHARIDEMUS.
You were once rich; but then you were for sodomy and for a long time no woman was of note to you. Now you run after old crones. Oh, how compelling is poverty! It makes you, Charidemus, a gallant.
Not translated in the Bohn; evasively translated by Ker. The above is adapted from Ker. 'gallant' is a softening of the coarse term used.
LXXXVIII. ON CHARISIANUS.
[Not translated in the Bohn or Ker]
LXXXIX. TO POLLA.
Why do you send me, Polla, wreaths of roses that are quite fresh? I would rather have roses that you have handled.
XC. TO CHRESTILLUS, AN ABSURD ADMIRER OF
THE OLD POETS.
You approve of no verses that run with a smooth cadence, but of those only that vault as it were over hills and crags; and a line such as this, Luceilei columella heic situ; Metrophan' est, "Lucilius's right hand, Metrophanes, lies here," is of more value in your eyes than a poem of Homer; and you read with ecstasy such words as terrai frugiferai, "the fruit-producing earth," as well as all that Attius and Pacuvius have sputtered forth. Do you wish me to imitate these old poets, Chrestillus, whom you so much admire?
Confound me, if I think you know what vigour is. 1
1 Dispeream, ni scis mentula quid sapis.
XCI. EPITAPH OF CANACE.
Canace, one of the daughters of Aeolia, lies buried in this tomb, a little child whose seventh winter was her last. "O shame! O dire fate! " why are you in haste, traveller, to weep? We do not here complain of the shortness of life; sadder than death itself was the manner of it; a horrid disease destroyed her face, and seized upon her delicate mouth. The cruel foe devoured her very lips, nor was her body consigned entire to the funeral pile. If the fates intended to fall on her with auch headlong violence, they should have come in some other form. But death hastened to close the passage of her sweet voice, lest her tongue should dissuade the stern goddesses from their purpose.
XCII. TO ZOILUS.
He speaks erroneously, Zoilus, who calls you vicious You are not vicious, Zoilus, but vice itself.
XCIII. ON THEODORUS, A BAD POET.
The flames have destroyed the Pierian dwelling of the bard Theodorus. Is this agreeable to you, you muses, and you, Phoebus? Oh shame, oh great wrong and scandal of the gods, that house and householder were not burned together!
XCIV. ON A JEW, A RIVAL POET.
As for the fact that you are exceedingly envious and everywhere carping at my writings, I pardon you, circumcised poet; you have your reasons. Nor am I at all concerned that, while carping at my verses, you steal them; for this too, circumcised poet, you have your reasons. This however, circumcised poet, annoys me, that, though you were born in the heart of Jerusalem, you attempt to seduce the object of my affections You deny that such is the case, and swear by the temples of Jupiter. I do not believe you; swear, circumcised poet, by Anchialus. 1
1 Supposed to be a corruption of the Hebrew for "as the Lord wills," the Romans supposing that the Jews, when they pronounced those words, uttered the name of some deity, which they wrote Anchialus.
XCV. TO FLACCUS.
[Not translated]
XCVI. TO A GERMAN, PREVENTING A ROMAN YOUTH
FROM DRINKING OF THE MARTIAN WATER, WHILE
HE DRUNK IT HIMSELF.
It is the Martian fountain,1 and not the Rhine, that rises here, German. Why do you stand in the boy's way, and keep him back from the water of the rich well? Barbarian, a fountain belonging to the conquerors should not allay the thirst of a captive slave, to the exclusion of a citizen.
1 see B. vi. Ep. 42.
XCVII. TO TELESILLA.
I can dally with four women in a single night, but may I die if I could in four years dally with you, Thelesilla, once.
Not translated in the Bohn; the above is by Ker.
XCVIII. TO FLACCUS.
It is impossible, Flaccus, to avoid the kissers. They press upon you, they delay you, they pursue you, they run against you, on all sides, from every direction, and in every place. No malignant ulcer will protect you from them, no inflamed pimples, or diseased chin, or ugly tetter, or lips smeared with oily cerate, or drop at the cold nose. They kiss you when you are hot and when you are cold; they kiss you when you are reserving your kiss for your wife. To envelope your head in a hood will not avail you; nor to secure your litter with skins and curtains, nor will a chair closed again and again be any defence to you; the kisser will find an entrance through every chink. Not the consulship itself nor the tribunate, nor the six fasces,1 nor the proud rod of the noisy lictor, will drive off the kisser. Though you be sitting on the lofty tribunal, and laying down the law to nations from the curule chair, the kisser will climb up to either place; he will kiss you in a fever or in tears; he will kiss you while you are yawning and swimming; he will kiss you when you are at stool. The sole remedy for the evil is, to make him, whom you would not wish to kiss, your friend.
1 Carried before the praetor.
XCIX. TO LESBIA.
Whenever you get up from your chair -- I have often noticed it ere now -- your unhappy garments, Lesbia, treat you indecently. When you attempt with your right hand, attempt with your left, to pluck them away, you wrench them out with tears and groans; they are so gripped by the straights of your mighty rump, and enter a pass difficult and Cyanean. Do you wish to cure this ugly defect? I will instruct you: Lesbia, I advise you neither to get up nor to sit down!
Not translated in the Bohn. The Symplegades or Cyanean rocks were the clashing rocks at the entrance of the Bosphorus which were said to come together and smash ships.
C. TO FLACCUS.
I have no fancy, Flaccus, for a mistress extraordinarily thin, who can make my rings serve her for bracelets; who scrapes me with her hips and pricks me with her knees; whose loins are rough as a saw, or sharp as a lance. Yet I have no taste for a mistress weighing a thousand pounds; I am a lover of flesh, but not of fat.
CI. TO FLACCUS.
And have you been able, Flaccus, to see the slender Thais? Then, Flaccus, I suspect you can see what is invisible.
CII. TO LYDIA.
He told no untruth, Lydia, who informed me that you have a handsome face, but devoid of expression. It is so; your face would always look handsome, if you would but be silent, and as mute as a waxen image, or a picture. But whenever you speak, Lydia, all your beauty flies, and no tongue does more damage to its owner than yours. Have a care lest the aedile see and hear you; it is portentous when a statue speaks.
CIII. TO SOPHRONIUS.
So great is the modesty of your mind and countenance, Sophronius, that I wonder you should ever have become a father.
CIV. TO HIS WIFE.
[Not translated in the Bohn, partly translated in Ker]
CV. TO GARRICUS.
You used to send me a pound; now, Garricus, you send me only a quarter; at least, Garricus, let it be half a pound. 1
1 An intimation that Garricus should have diminished his presents by degrees; compare B. viii. Ep. 71.
CVI. TO VIBIUS MAXIMUS.
Vibius Maximus, if you can spare time, read this trifle; for you have little to do, and are not over laborious. What, do you pass over even these four lines? Well! you are right.
CVII. TO SEPTICIANUS.
You send me back my book, Septicianus, as if it had been unrolled down to its very end, and read through. You have read everything; I believe it, I know it; in truth I am delighted. In the same manner I have read through your five books.
CVIII. TO THE READER.
Although, reader, you may well be tired of so long a book, you still want a few more distichs from me. But Lupus 1 demands his interest; and my copyists their wages. Pay, reader. You are silent; do you pretend not to hear? Then, goodbye.
