Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK ELEVEN

LXXXI
CUM sene communem uexat spado Dindymus Aeglen
Et iacet in medio sicca puella toro.
Uiribus hic, operi non est hic utilis annis:
Ergo sine effectu prurit utrique labor.
Supplex illa rogat pro se miserisque duobus,
Hunc iuuenem facias, hunc, Cytherea, uirum.
* LXXXII
THE WINE-BIBBER
A GUEST, going home to his lodging at night,
Had near Sinuessa an unpleasant fright,
For hurrying down a long stairway he fell,
And all but joined hapless Elpenor in hell.
He would never have fallen, ye Nymphs of the shrine,
If he'd kept to your water and kept off the wine.
LXXXIII
PAYING GUESTS
THE childless rich-and only theyFor nothing may with Andrew stayBut, when he pockets large bequests,
We see they're really paying guests.
LXXXIV
THE BARBER
You would not feel Ixion's wheel or change with Sisyphus?
Oh then, beware the barber's chair of dread Antiochus!
The frenzied crowd may cry aloud with howls delirious;
Their arms they slash-your deadly gash is worse, Antiochus.
One may endure a surgeon's ' cure' in fashion valorous,
Or broken bone without a groan-but not Antiochus.
'Twould take the crew of cynics who are most necessitous,
Or else a horse, whose mane is coarse, to bear Antiochus.
Though vultures tear Prometheus there upon the Caucasus,
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