Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS
LVII
ON A BALD MAN WHO PAINTED HIS SCALP
WHEN nature's tresses you would imitate
By smearing unguents on your greasy pate,
At least the barber's toil and shears you saveA sponge can give a clean and easy shave.
LVIII
TO THE CENTURION PUDENS
FAR in the North you fought and loved to see
Gleam bright above your head the frozen wain,
Nor knew how Lethe's waters threatened me
And the dim mists that shroud Elysium's plain;
Wandered mine eyes to find your face again,
'Pudens': my lips, nigh speechless, murmured still.
But now if no black thread for me be spun,
If listening gods mine orisons fulfil,
Soon shall I see you safe, the guerdon won
Of high command worthy your fame and skill.
* LIX
ON BACCARA
BACCARA has so many great-coats that he growls
Unless the frost bites and the icy wind howls.
He likes the dark days and the cold and the snow:
Mild weather in winter to him is a blow.
What harm has my cloak, which a light wind can raise
From my shoulders, done to you that winter you praise?
How much more straightforward and kind it would be
In August to let us your frieze wrappers see!
LX
THE ENV'IOUS CRITIC
IME kindly Rome loves, quotes my books, and buys them;
But till that critic feigning to despise them
Blushed and turned pale, then yawned and looked confounded,
I never felt my fame was surely grounded.
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