Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS

* XI
THE EMPEROR'S HOME-COMING
RHINE knows that thou at last hast come to Rome,
For our loud cheers reach even to his home.
Sarmatian tribes and savage Getae fear,
And Hister trembles at our shouts of cheer;
While in the Circus, homage once begun,
No man perceived four races had been run.
No chief has Rome so loved, nor thee of yore;
Now, though she wished, she cannot love thee more.
XII
TO PRISCUS
I MARRY wealth and be for life
Naught save the husband of my wife?
Nay 'twere a galling tether.
The man must rule, the wife obey,
Priscus, there is no other way
To make them pull together.
XIII
THE GUARANTEE
I BOUGHT him as a fool at vast expense;
Pay back the price, he shows a gleam of sense.
* XIV
GLASS-HOUSES
LEST your trees should turn yellow and shrink from the cold
Or too biting an air on their branches get hold,
Glass casements face south, keeping chill winds away,
And let in the sunlight and undefiled day:
But my garret's window has just one cracked pane
Where Boreas himself would not care to remain.
Do you wish your old friend to stay there till he freeze?
I should be better off as the guest of your trees.
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