Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK FIVE

XXXIX
DISAPPOINTED HOPES
FULL thirty times this year you've signed a will,
And every time I send you dainties rare
With scented honey fresh from Hybla's hill;
I can't go on-my purse and feelings spare!
To make so many wills is hardly fair:
Do it for good and all, and then fulfil
The promise of that guileful cough that still
Deludes all hope. Now is my pocket bare,
And common gifts, if oft repeated thus,
Would turn a Dives to a Lazarus.
* XL
TO ARTEMIDORUS
MINERVA'S the goddess of painters, but yet
On limning Queen Venus your fancy is set.
Minerva and Venus are rivals, men tell;
So be not surprised if your picture don't sell.
* XLI
TO DID YMIUS
THE softest of eunuch's more manly than you,
Or Atys himself whom the castrated crew
Proclaim at Celaenae as lord of their rout
While they worship the Mother with maddening shout:
And yet of the seats in the theatre you prate,
Of edicts and stripes, Ides and clasps, and estate;
And point at us poor men the finger of scorn
Which with pumice-stone rubbings you love to adorn.
It may be perhaps you can sit as a knight;
But to sit with the husbands you've surely no right.
XLII
TRUE WEALTH
SOME thief may steal your wealth away,
Although by massive walls surrounded;
Or ruthless fire in ashes lay
The ancient home your fathers founded;
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