Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK FOUR

* XL
TO POSTUMUS
WHEN the wise Senecas adorned our age
And Piso's house with all its lineage,
To those great patrons you I did prefer;
You, a poor knight, to me a consul were.
Full thirty years have passed since that first day
When you and I on the same pallet lay;
And now you're rich, an honoured magistrate,
With brimming purse:-yet still your gifts I wait.
The time has gone another lord to find;
Had Fortune known, she had not been so kind.
XLI
TO A DELICA TE POET
'Tis but your throat you guard with wool
Ere you recite your verse.
I pray you be more pitiful,
Our ears will suffer worse.
* XLII
TO FLACCUS
IF any one wishes to give me a slave,
I will mention the points I would wish him to have.
First of all, I should like him from Egypt to come,
For he'll be a sly rogue if the Nile is his home.
Let his cheeks too be whiter than snow; in those lands
That colour is rare and its value commands.
Let his eyes vie with stars and his hair wanton free
O'er his shoulders; close-braided locks do not please me.
Let his forehead be low and his nose aquiline,
Let his lips on the roses of Paestum refine.
Let him court me unwilling, refuse me when fain,
And ever more free than his master remain,
For me but a boy, to the world a man grown,
Who as friends neither youths nor yet maidens will own.
' I know him,' you say,-' you need not make this fuss;
The boy that you mean's my Amazonicus.'
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