Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS

* XVI
A WARNING TO PRUDES
GRAVE reader, go-wherever you may pleaseI'm wIiting now for Roman cits at ease.
This scroll is full of Priapean rhymes
And sound of castanets from Spanish climes.
Though you more stern than ancient Curius be
You will be fired, methinks, if you read me.
Yet modest maidens at this sportive book
May in their cups perchance with favour look,
And matrons hide it from their lords awayMeaning to finish it some other day.
XVII
TO SABINUS
THOUGH for convivial hours my verse be fit
Somewhat of sober thought doth lurk in it.
XVIII
TO LUPUS
You gave me an estate near town, you say:
My window-ledge provides a larger! Nay,
How can you dare to term it so to me?
One sprig of rue Diana's grove must be,
A cricket's leg could shade it over quite,
An ant despoil it in a single night,
The tiniest rose-leaf cover it, and rare
As Cosmus' nard is any herbage there;
A gherkin cannot lie at length; though small
And tightly coiled a snake can cover all;
A slug half-starved there is-the willow-bed
Nurtured a gnat-the famished brute is dead;
A mole is ditcher-and he ploughs as well;
There was a mushroom but it could not swell;
The fig and violet, so cramped were they
As not to open to the light of day;
A mouse is there, my bailiff dreads it more
Than if it were the Calydonian boar;
342