Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS
LXXIV
ON A DOCTOR TURNED GLADIATOR
A FIGHTER to-day and a doctor before,
Time makes little change in your course.
The force of your physic was fatal before,
So now is your physical force!
* LXXV
DEAD GAULS
A GAUL late one night, who had just come to Rome,
Was making his way from the Colonnade home,
WVhen he caught his big toe and his ankle-bone sprained,
And stretched at full length on the pavement remained.
What was to be done? He could not himself rise,
And the one servant with him was so small in size
That he scarcely a very light lantern could bear,
And helplessly gazed at his lord lying there.
Chance came to his aid; for four slaves came along
With a pauper's cheap corpse, one of that endless throng
Who move to the burial-ground every day,
And his man plucked up courage the bearers to stay —
' Please stop: you may do what you like with the dead,
If you'll take on your bier my fat master instead.'
The loads were soon changed and the Gaul, lifted high,
Made shift on the pauper's scant litter to lie.
We might very well now sing the circus refrain,
' You are dead, master Gaul'-over him once again.
LXXVI
TO GALLIC US
' PRAY tell me plainly what you think of it,'
You always say, ' I love a frank report.'
Thus when you read the products of your wit,
Thus when you plead a client's case in court,
You pester me a verdict to extort.
\nd since a flat refusal sceens uncouth
Here is the truth you ask for, plain and short —
That truth is that you do not want the truth.
256