Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK TEN

* VI
ON TRAJAN'S RETURN TO ROME
AH happy they, whom Fortune grants to see
Our chief ablaze with northern pageantry.
When shall our maidens at their windows stand
And fill the Campus with their happy band?
When shall all Rome on the Flaminian Way
See the dust rise that ends the dear delay?
While knights and painted Moors and people cry' He comes, he comes '-as Caesar passes by.
VII
ON THE SAME
EACH stream and Naiad fed on Northern snows,
O Rhine, to thee, the sire, her life blood owes;
Henceforth unfettered be thy waters fair
That no barbarian wheel shall ever dare,
When thou art bound by frost, to traverse thee;
If thou wouldst go thy way, thy banks made free,
And thou be Roman, thou must needs restore
Our Trajan to his folk and town once more.
His presence doth the royal Tiber need;
Thine overlord is he, do thou give heed!
VIII
THE CONDITION
THOUGH Paula wants to marry me,
That wealthy hag, I can't agree;
I really do not think I could:
If she were older, then I would!
IX
POETIC FAME
I AM a poet famed the wide world through
For measures Ovid and Catullus knew,
For merry wit and kindly-this I claim.
Yet envy not-A Derby winner's fame
Is greater; mine of course must rank below it,
I am a poet.
301