Carmina

Varus drew me off from the Forum where I was passing the time to see his lover: a professional, as it seemed to me at first sight, neither inelegant nor lacking good looks. When we came in, we fell to discussing various subjects, among which, how was Bithynia now, how things had gone there, and whether I had made any money there. I replied what was true, that neither ourselves nor the praetors nor their company had brought away anything whereby to flaunt a better-scented hair-do, especially as our praetor, who boned us all, didn't care a hair for his company. "But surely," she said, "you got some men to bear your litter, for they are said to grow there?" I, to make myself appear to the girl as one of the fortunate, "No," I say, "it did not go that badly with me, ill as the province turned out, that I could not procure eight strapping men to bear me. (But not a single one was mine either here or there who could hoist on his neck the fractured foot of my old bedstead). And she, like the saucy tramp she was, "Please, Catullus," says she, "lend me those bearers for a short time, for I want to ride to the shrine of Serapis." "Hold it!" say I to the girl, "when I said I had this, my mind slipped; my friend, Cinna Gaius, he provided himself with these. In truth, whether his or mine—what is it to me? I use them as though I had paid for them. But you are awfully crude and a bother, not through you am I to be careless."