Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK ONE

So when the courtly gallants of the Town
Are elbowed by a bumpkin smeared and patched,
Their cloaks are sullied by the greasy clown;
Is vulgar clay with clearest crystal matched?
When to swan-haunted streams a crow is nigh
The carrion bird hath yet a fouler taint,
When thrills the grove to nightingales, the pie
Mars with her evil shriek the Attic plaint.
No surer proof, no advocate, I need
Your page stands forth to prove your felon deed.
LIV
TO FUSCUS
YOUR friends abound on every side,
But is your heart all occupied?
For if one vacant place there be
I pray you give that place to me.
A love untried may yet be true,
For all old friends have once been new.
Make proof of mine, since, if 'tis fit,
The years can only strengthen it.
* LV
COUNTRY PLEASURES
DEAR Fronto, famed alike in peace and war,
If you would learn what my chief wishes are,
Know that I crave some acres few to till,
And live at ease as careless as I will.
Why should I always trudge the stony street
And go each morn some haughty lord to greet,
When all the country's spoils are mine to get
Caught in the meshes of a hunting-net?
When I with line could snare the leaping trout
And from the hive press golden honey out,
While Joan my humble board with eggs supplies
Boiled on a fire whose logs she never buys?
May he not love this life who loves not me,
And still in Rome a pale-faced client be!
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