Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS

But you, my friend, in your suburban seat
Win but starvation from your garden neat;
From your high towers you see but laurel leaves,
Nor need your garden god have fear of thieves;
Your labourers are fed on corn from Rome,
And you import to your gay country home
Greens, apples, poultry, eggs, and wine, and cheese.
Mansions in town, not farms, need things like these.
* LIX
'TIMES ARE CHANGED'
AT Bononia a cobbler furnished a show,
At Matina a bleacher: I'm wondering now
At what sort of town we may possibly see
An innkeeper give people circus-games free.
* LX
TO PONTIC C US
TO-DAY I dine with you at my own cost,
So why not fare the same, both guest and host?
You swallow Lucrine oysters large and fat,
I suck a whelk and cut my lips at that.
You're served with mushrooms, I chew fungus still
You have to do with turbot, I with brill.
Plump yellow doves your appetite assuage,
I have a magpie starved within its cage.
I'm by your side and yet I'm far away.
The dole has gone. Let's fare the same, I say.
LX1
TO (JINA
YOUR impudent demands to mask,
You always say that what you ask
Is-nothing-but, if that be true,
Whitat I refuse is nothing too.
92