Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS
For length you damn my epigram!
Is Brutus' boy too small?
Your critic eyes perhaps despise
Colossus as too tall?
'Tis plain indeed you never read
Marsus or Pedo sage;
One piece of each will often reach
Beyond a single page.
A word remove and I will prove
You do my poem wrong.
Your couplets are too long by farThat is two lines too long.
LXXVIII
TO CAECILIANUS
YOUR fish won't keep in Summer-time? Why not?
You can't have tried the baths that you call hot.
* LXXIX
TO NA SICA
You only asked me when you know
I've asked another man to dine.
And, as to-day I eat at home,
Your invitation I decline.
* LXXX
SELF SLAIN
WHILE Fannius the foeman fled,
He madly pierced his side,
And, lest he should be stricken dead,
By his own hand he died.
* LXXXI
TO ZOILUS
THOUGH in a gorgeous litter you may ride,
It seems a pauper's bier when you're inside.
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