Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK NINE

* XXVIII
ON A BUST OF THE ACTOR LATINUS
I AM Latinus, darling of the stage,
The applause, the pride, the wonder of my age,
Who could have wooed stern Cato to the play,
And made Fabricius laugh his cares away.
Naught from the theatre did my morals take,
And only in a farce was I a rake.
Virtue you need our master's grace to win;
He is a god who sees the heart within.
'A parasite of Phoebus'-as you will:
But let Rome know I served her great Jove still.
XXIX
ON AN OLD WOIMAN'S GRAT'E
DEATH snatched you away before your day and took you to
Lethe's shore,
You could beat old Parr, but Methuselah might give you a
month or more.
What a voice to be dumb-it could overcome the market's
or schoolroom's clatter,
A revivalist hymn, or the river's brim with a million cranes
a-chatter.
There was none like you foul tricks to do, as a witch you have
left no double:
Be your covering slight and of sand so light that the dogs
may have little trouble.
XXX
ON THE DEATH OF RUSTICUS
FOUL Asian coast, his life hast thou betrayed,
On thee by guilty waves his corpse was tossed.
Close in her breast his loving spouse conveyed
The sacred urn, too soon the seas were crossed,
Too soon those ashes in the earth she laid,
And seemed twice widowed of a love twice lost.
27I