Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS

XXXVII
TO GA LLA
WHILST in your room you deck your beauty bright,
Next door the coiffeur braids your lovely hair,
Your frocks and teeth are laid away at night,
So portioned out in boxes here and there
You lie, and your complexion sleeps elsewhere;
Beneath a brow, remodelled day by day,
Your eye still ogles men. Be reverent, pray,
Nor hawk about each prehistoric charm:
Though love is dull and dim of sight they say,
He sees you well enough to take alarm.
* XXXVIII
ON A BOY JUGGLING I'ITH A SHIELD
You play, Agathinus, a most risky game,
But you can't get your buckler to fall all the same;
When you shun it, it follows, returning through air,
And lights on your finger-tips, foot, back, or hair.
The stage may be wet with the red saffron rain,
And the boisterous wind make all awnings seem vain,
But unheeded it runs o'er the boy's careless limbs
Not baffled by showers or the breeze's mad whims.
Though you try to go wrong you can't do it at all;
It will need all your skill if the shield is to fall.
XXXIX
ON CAESONIA'S BIRTHDAY
RHEA, thou shouldst have chosen for thy son
This day that saw our lord of Thunder's birth
And sweet Caesonia's. In all the earth
Is none that owes her mother more and none
More glad than he, her Sire, to bless the morn
Whereon his Caesar and his child were born.
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