Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK TEN

Seek the bedizened Persian King who craves
Abjects about his jewelled feet to crawl;
Here Trajan rules, no lord of grovelling slaves,
A senator, most righteous of them all;
From death to life is rugged truth restored,
And here in simple grandeur reigneth she;
0 Rome, be wise-forget the words abhorred
That tyranny aforetime wrung from thee!
* LXXIII
TO MARCUS
A WELCOME pledge your letter brings, I own,
The formal gift of an Italian gown;
Not such a one as old Fabricius wore,
But such as gay Maecenas donned of yore.
Less precious were it from another handNot every victim heaven can commandBut sent from you I must the name approve,
E'en if the gift itself I did not love;
And more than gift and name do I commend
The kindly judgment of my learned friend.
LXXIV
REPOSE
SPARE me, for I am tired with labour long
And social calls; 0 Rome, thou canst discern it;
Still must I toil amid the clients' throng
For one half-crown, and spend all day to earn it.
Great sacks of gold the charioteer reward,
It takes him but a single hour to win them;
My little books demand no golden hoard,
For well they know how little there is in them.
I do not ask Apulian fields to till,
Hybla's or Egypt's wealth that none may number,
Or vineyards rich that crown the Setinc hill;
The greater boon I ask is merely slumber!
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