Do you wonder for what reason, Theodorus, notwithstanding your
frequent requests and importunities, I have never presented you
read more

Do you wonder for what reason, Theodorus, notwithstanding your
frequent requests and importunities, I have never presented you
with my works? I have an excellent reason; it is lest you should
present me with yours.

The diamond's virtues well might grace
The epigram, and both excel
In brilliancy in smallest space,
read more

The diamond's virtues well might grace
The epigram, and both excel
In brilliancy in smallest space,
And power to cut as well.

You were constantly, Matho, a guest at my villa at Tivoli. Now
you buy it--I have deceived you; I read more

You were constantly, Matho, a guest at my villa at Tivoli. Now
you buy it--I have deceived you; I have merely sold you what was
already your own.

What's this that myrrh doth still smell in thy kiss,
And that with thee no other odour is?
read more

What's this that myrrh doth still smell in thy kiss,
And that with thee no other odour is?
'Tis doubt, my Postumus, he that doth smell
So sweetly always, smells not very well.

If you wish, Faustinus, a bath of boiling water to be reduced in
temperature,--a bath, such as scarcely Julianus read more

If you wish, Faustinus, a bath of boiling water to be reduced in
temperature,--a bath, such as scarcely Julianus could enter,--ask
the rhetorician Sabinaeus to bathe himself in it. He would
freeze the warm baths of Nero.

Report says that you, Fidentinus, recite my compositions in
public as if they were your own. If you allow read more

Report says that you, Fidentinus, recite my compositions in
public as if they were your own. If you allow them to be called
mine, I will send you my verses gratis; if you wish them to be
called yours, pray buy them, that they may be mine no longer.

In whatever place you meet me, Postumus, you cry out immediately,
and your very first words are, "How do read more

In whatever place you meet me, Postumus, you cry out immediately,
and your very first words are, "How do you do?" You say this,
even if you meet me ten times in one single hour: you, Postumus,
have nothing, I suppose, to do.

I could do without your face, and your neck, and your hands, and
your limbs, and your bosom, and read more

I could do without your face, and your neck, and your hands, and
your limbs, and your bosom, and other of your charms. Indeed,
not to fatigue myself with enumerating each of them, I could do
without you, Chloe, altogether.

What is an epigram? a dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

What is an epigram? a dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.