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.

You complain, Velox, that the epigrams which I write are long.
You yourself write nothing; your attempts are shorter.

You complain, Velox, that the epigrams which I write are long.
You yourself write nothing; your attempts are shorter.

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.

When to secure your bald pate from the weather,
You lately wore a cape of black neats' leather;
read more

When to secure your bald pate from the weather,
You lately wore a cape of black neats' leather;
He was a very wag, who to you said,
"Why do you wear your slippers on your head?"

The qualities all in a bee that we meet,
In an epigram never should fail;
The body read more

The qualities all in a bee that we meet,
In an epigram never should fail;
The body should always be little and sweet,
And a sting should be felt in its tail.

Acon his right, Leonilla her left eye
Doth want; yet each in form, the gods out-vie.
Sweet read more

Acon his right, Leonilla her left eye
Doth want; yet each in form, the gods out-vie.
Sweet boy, with thine, thy sister's sight improved:
So shall she Venus be, thou God of Love.
[Lat., Lumine Acon dextre,--capta est Leonilla sinistre,
Et potis est forma vincere uterque dees:
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori,
Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus.]

This picture, plac'd the busts between
Gives Satire all its strength;
Wisdom and Wit are little seen
read more

This picture, plac'd the busts between
Gives Satire all its strength;
Wisdom and Wit are little seen
While Folly glares at length.

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.

Some learned writers . . . have compared a Scorpion to an Epigram
. . . because as the read more

Some learned writers . . . have compared a Scorpion to an Epigram
. . . because as the sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so
the force and virtue of an epigram is in the conclusion.