Your frames are hard and dried like horn,Or if more arid aught ye knowBy suns and frosts and hunger-throe.Then why not happy as thou'rt hale?Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, and failPhlegm and foul snivel from the nose.Add cleanness that aye cleanlier showsA bum than salt-pot cleanlier,Nor ten times cack'st in total year,And harder 'tis than pebble or beanWhich rubbed in hand or crumbled, e'enOn finger ne'er shall make unclean.Such blessings (Furius !) such a prizeNever belittle nor despise;Hundred sesterces seek no moreWith wonted prayer—enow's thy store!
TO JUVENTIUS CONCERNING THE CHOICE OF A FRIENDO of Juventian youths the flowret fairNot of these only, but of all that wereOr shall be, coming in the coming years,Better waste Midas' wealth (to me appears)On him that owns nor slave nor money-chestThan thou shouldst suffer by his love possest."What! is he vile or not fair?" "Yes!" I attest, "Yet owns this man so comely neither slaves nor chest My words disdain thou or accept at bestYet neither slave he owns nor money-chest."
ADDRESS TO THALLUS THE NAPERY-THIEFThou bardache Thallus! more than Coney's robeSoft, or goose-marrow or ear's lowmost lobe,Or Age's languid yard and cobweb'd part,Same Thallus greedier than the gale thou art,When the Kite-goddess shows thee Gulls agape,Return my muffler thou hast dared to rape,Saetaban napkins, tablets of Thynos, allWhich (Fool!) ancestral heirlooms thou didst call.These now unglueing from thy claws restore,Lest thy soft hands, and floss-like flanklets score The burning scourges, basely signed and lined,And thou unwonted toss like wee barque tyned'Mid vasty Ocean vexed by madding wind!
CATULLUS CONCERNING HIS VILLAFurius! our Villa never Austral forceB roke, neither set thereon Favonius' course,Nor savage Boreas, nor Epeliot's strain,But fifteen thousand crowns and hundreds twainWreckt it, —Oh ruinous by-wind, breezy bane!
TO HIS CUP-BOYThou youngling drawer of Falernian oldCrown me the goblets with a bitterer wineAs was Postumia's law that rules the feastThan ebriate grape-stone more inebriate.But ye fare whither please ye (water-nymphs!)To wine pernicious, and to sober folkMigrate ye: mere Thyonian juice be here!
TO FRIENDS ON RETURN FROM TRAVELFollowers of Piso, empty bandWith your light budgets packt to hand,Veránius best! Fabúllus mine!What do ye? Bore ye enough, in fineOf frost and famine with yon sot?What loss or gain have haply gotYour tablets? so, whenas I rangedWith Praetor, gains for loss were changed."O Memmius! thou did'st long and late . . me supine slow and . . . "But (truly see I) in such caseDiddled you were by wight as baseSans mercy. Noble friends go claim!Now god and goddess give you grameDisgrace of Romulus! Remus' shame!
TO CAESAR OF MAMURRA, CALLED MENTULA
Who e'er could witness this (who could endure Except the lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut)That should Mamurra get what hairy GaulAnd all that farthest Britons held whilòme?(Thou bardache Romulus!) this wilt see and bear?Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut!He now superb with pride superfluousShall go perambulate the bedrooms allLike white-robed dovelet or Adonis-love.