Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK FOUR

* I
DOMITIAN'S BIRTHDA '
0 HAPPY day, more hallowed than the morn
When on consenting Ida Jove was born,
Come oft I pray and Nestor's years outrun,
Matching our Emperor's glory with thy sun.
Long may he Pallas court, in Alba's gold,
Long in proud hand the oak-leaf garland hold,
And even when a hundred years have flown
May the Great Games still see him on the throne.
A wondrous gift, yet owed to earth by fate!
And for a god so high no vows can seem too great.
II
THE HAPPY CHANCE
HORATIUS sat the games to see,
Unseemly black he wore;
Tho' all were clad in white save lie
From churl to senator.
Then fell the snow (for heaven conspired
To set the error right),
Until, more decently attired,
Horatius sat in white.
III
THE SNOWSTORM1 IN THE CIRCUS
THE silent snow a fleece doth cast
On Caesar's breast and flecks his hair,
He scorns the frost and frozen blast
And humours Jove, half unaware.
Who spurned Bootes and the Bear
With dripping locks, may well defy
Those flakes-the toys his little heir
Has dropped while playing in the sky.
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