Epigrams (Modern Library Classics)

by Martial

I warn you, fisherman, for your sake,

  Keep well clear of the Baian lake

  Or you’ll commit a crime. This pool

  Is swum in by a sacred school

  Of fish who know their master and

  Nibble his earth-compelling hand;

  What’s more, each, being named, will swim,

  Called by the Emperor, to him.

  Not long ago, by this deep stretch,

  Some sacrilegious Libyan wretch,

  While tugging at his quivering rod,

  Was instantly struck blind by God

  And never saw his catch. Now, hating

  His cursèd hooks, he squats here, waiting

  For alms. Then, while you still may, go

  Hence innocently; but first throw

  Some unbarbed morsel in, and wish

  Long life to the imperial fish.

  34

  Attalus, you’re the butt of a good joke:

  “His toga’s filthy, but he’s clean—clean broke.”

  38

  Galla, say no; for love, unless

  It teases, cloys with happiness.

  Don’t take too long, though, to say yes.

  64

  My friend’s few happy acres vie

  With the Hesperides: they lie

  On the Janiculum’s long spine.

  A flat crest with a mild incline,

  Un-overlooked, his plateau breathes

  Serener air, and, when mist wreathes

  The valleys, Julius Martial’s height

  Shines with a private, privileged light.

  On starry nights when there’s no cloud,

  The graceful gable of his proud

  Villa lifts gently towards heaven.

  From one side you can see the seven

  Sovereign hills, a bird’s-eye view

  Of all Rome, Alba’s summits too,

  And Tusculum’s, and each cool retreat

  In the suburbs—old Fidenae, neat

  Little Rubrae, and the goddess’ wood

  Who likes her annual virgins’ blood.

  From the other, either road he goes,

  North or north-west, the traveller shows

  Clear to the eye: the wheels spin round

  And yet the carriage makes no sound

  To interrupt sleep; for, though the ridge

  Is not far from the Mulvian Bridge

  And all the boats that glide and scud

  Up and down holy Tiber’s flood,

  No bargee’s shout or bosun’s cry

  Can climb to vex the ear so high.

  This house half out of, half in Rome,

  The owner bids you treat as home;

  Indeed you’ll think of it as yours,

  So hospitably are the doors

  Opened, the visitor supplied

  With every want, nothing denied.

  Such liberality once reigned

  When King Alcinous entertained

  Ulysses, or Molorchus played

  Host after Hercules had made

  Him rich overnight.

                                          You who now call

  All but your own grand properties small,

  Order a hundred men with hoes

  To work cool Tibur, or impose

  A single manager to run

  Setia’s vine-terraces as one

  Vast farm—I’ll still (asking your pardon)

  Prefer my namesake’s modest garden.

  66

  You’ve spent your whole life in the provinces,

  And that’s the cheapest way to live there is.

  On the odd Ides or Calends you might take

  Your dusty toga out and give it a shake;

  One dinner-suit lasts you ten summers’ wear.

  Your scrub and fields offer wild boar and hare

  Gratis; you beat your copses and get plump

  Thrushes as gifts; fish in abundance jump

  Out of your wriggling river, for the asking, on the line;

  Your big red jar pours out the next hill’s wine.

  Your plain hearth’s tended by a retinue

  Of your own country people—not for you

  Some pretty, Greek-born butler. You can screw

  Your housekeeper when wine heats up your blood

  Or some rough farmer’s wife. No fire or flood

  Has ever touched your house, no August sun

  Ruined your crops, no ship—for you have none—

  Gone down at sea. Your solitary vice

  Is the good old knucklebones, not desperate dice,

  And you stake only a few nuts. You were the heir

  Of a rich, miserly mother, Linus. Where

  Are those million sesterces? Since your bereavement

  They’ve vanished. A remarkable achievement!

  70

  When Ammianus’ father breathed

  His last, his son, hovering in hope,

  Found that the final will bequeathed

  Him nothing but a length of rope.

  Though none of us dreamed he could regret

  The old man’s death, he’s most upset.

  71

  Rufus, I’ve searched all Rome for a long time

  To find a girl who says no. There are none.

  It seems as if it’s simply just not done,

  As if it’s impermissible, a crime,

  To say no. Does that mean that they’re all whores,

  That virgins don’t exist? No, there are scores.

  Then what does a good girl do? She doesn’t give

  Either herself or a plain negative.

  81

  Now that she’s read my epigram—the one

  About girls saying no—Fabulla’s begun

  To be difficult. Already she’s thrown back

  My first, my second, even my third attack.

  Fabulla, do be sensible. When I said,

  “Say no,” I meant, “Say the last no in bed.”

  89

  Whoa, little book! Slow up! Easy there! Steady!

  We’ve reached the finishing post, yet you’re still ready

  To gallop uncontrollably on, to run

  Past the last page, as if your job weren’t done.

  (I’d have called it a day after page one!)

  My reader’s fed up now, about to drop,

  And my copyist, who longs to shut up shop,

  Agrees: “Whoa, little book! Enough! Full stop!”

  BOOK FIVE

  9

  I was unwell. You hurried round, surrounded

  By ninety students, Doctor. Ninety chill,

  North-wind-chapped hands then pawed and probed and pounded.

  I was unwell: now I’m extremely ill.

  10

  “Fame is denied to living authors; few

  Readers give their contemporaries their due.

  Why is this so?” Well, Regulus, I’ll tell you.

  The character of envy is to value

  The ancients higher than the moderns. So,

  Nostalgically, ungratefully, we go

  For shade to Pompey’s antique colonnade,

  So old men praise the ugly temple made

  Uglier by Catulus. You read Ennius, Rome,

  When Virgil was available nearer at home;

  In his own century Homer’s public found him

  Uncouth; Menander’s audience seldom crowned him

  Or even clapped; though Ovid was a poet,

  Corinna was the only one to know it.

  But there’s no cause, my little books, to worry:

  If glory must be posthumous, why hurry?

  18

  Because, this month, when napkins, pretty spoons,

  Paper, wax tapers and tall jars of prunes

  Fly to and fro, I’ve sent you nothing but books,

  My humble, home-made verses, I may seem

  Stingy or impolite. But I abhor

&
nbsp; The tricks of the angler’s trade. Gifts are like hooks,

  And flies, as everyone knows, fool greedy bream.

  So, Quintianus, when a man who’s poor

  Sends nothing to a rich friend, it’s an act

  Of generosity—in point of tact.

  20

  If you and I, Julius, old friend,

  Were granted licence to expend

  Time without worry, infinite leisure,

  Together to explore life’s pleasure,

  We’d neither of us bother then

  With the ante-rooms of powerful men,

  Arrogant busts, ancestral faces,

  Or the law’s bitter, tedious cases.

  No; strolls, gossip, the Colonnade,

  Bookshops, the baths, the garden’s shade,

  The Aqueduct, the exercise-ground,

  Would constitute our onerous round.

  But, as it is, we, both and each,

  Miss the rich life within our reach.

  We watch the good sun speed and set,

  And the lost day goes down as debt.

  Would any man, if he knew how

  To live, not do it here and now?

  26

  In one of my recent literary jokes,

  I gave you “alpha,” Cordus, for your cloaks.

  By all means, if that poem got your goat,

  Award me “beta” for my overcoat.

  34

  To you, my parents, I send on

  This little girl Erotion,

  The slave I loved, that by your side

  Her ghost need not be terrified

  Of the pitch darkness underground

  Or the great jaws of Hades’ hound.

  This winter she would have completed

  Her sixth year had she not been cheated

  By just six days. Lisping my name,

  May she continue the sweet game

  Of childhood happily down there

  In two such good, old spirits’ care.

  Lie lightly on her, turf and dew:

  She put so little weight on you.

  39

  Three times a month you change your will

  And hopefully, with each codicil,

  I send you cakes flavoured with honey

  Of Hybla. Now that I’ve no money,

  Have pity! Stop will-tinkering,

  Charinus, or else do the thing

  Long promised by that cough which mocks

  Our expectations. My strong-box

  Is drained, my purse has nothing in it.

  Even if I became this minute

  Richer than Croesus, I’d soon be

  The beggar in the Odyssey:

  At this rate, you’d exhaust my means

  If all you got each time was beans.

  45

  Bassa, you tell us that you’re young

  And beautiful. Is it the truth?

  That old refrain is often sung

  By those who’ve lost both looks and youth.

  46

  The only kisses I enjoy

  Are those I take by violence, boy.

  Your anger whets my appetite

  More than your face, and so to excite

  Desire I give you a good beating

  From time to time: a self-defeating

  Habit—what do I do it for?

  You neither fear nor love me more.

  56

  For ages you’ve been agonising, bothering me with the problem: to which schoolmaster should you entrust your son?

  Right, then. The boy should shun

  Anyone who teaches

  Grammar or rhetoric; let him steer clear of Virgil, skip Cicero’s speeches

  And leave Tutilius to stew in his own fame.

  If he writes poetry, for the sake of the family name

  Disinherit him. If it’s money he wants to earn,

  He can easily learn

  To twang the harp in the chorus, or toot

  The accompanist’s flute.

  If he seems short on intellect,

  Make him an auctioneer or an architect.

  74

  Asia and Europe each provide a grave

  For Pompey’s sons, and he himself lies under

  Egypt, if grave he can be said to have.

  Or is the world his tomb? There’d be no wonder

  In that: one monument would be too small

  To house so huge, so ruinous a fall.

  76

  By daily making himself sick

  With minuscule drops of arsenic

  King Mithridates once built up

  Immunity to the poison-cup.

  In the same way, your small, vile dinner

  Saves you from death by hunger, Cinna.

  78

  Toranius, if the prospect of a cheerless, solitary dinner

  Bores you, eat with me—and get thinner.

  If you like appetite-whetters,

  There’ll be cheap Cappadocian lettuce,

  Pungent leeks, and tunny-fish

  Nestling in sliced eggs. Next, a black earthenware dish

  (Watch out—a finger-scorcher!) of broccoli just taken

  From its cool bed, pale beans with pink bacon,

  And a sausage sitting in the centre

  Of a snow-white pudding of polenta.

  If you want to try a dessert, I can offer you raisins (my own),

  Pears (from Syria), and hot chestnuts (grown

  In Naples, city of learning)

  Roasted in a slow-burning

  Fire. As for the wine, by drinking it you’ll commend it.

  When this great feast has ended,

  If, as he well might,

  Bacchus stirs up a second appetite,

  You’ll be reinforced by choice Picenian olives fresh from the trees,

  Warm lupins and hot chick-peas.

  Let’s face it,

  It’s a poor sort of dinner; yet, if you deign to grace it,

  You’ll neither say nor hear

  One word that’s not sincere,

  You can lounge at ease in your place,

  Wearing your own face,

  You won’t have to listen while your host reads aloud from some thick book

  Or be forced to look

  At girls from that sink, Cadiz, prancing

  Through the interminable writhings of professional belly-dancing.

  Instead, Condylus, my little slave,

  Will pipe to us—something not too rustic, nor yet too grave.

  Well, that’s the “banquet.” I shall invite

  Claudia to sit on my left. Who would you like on my right?

  81

  If you’re poor now, my friend, then you’ll stay poor.

  These days only the rich get given more.

  BOOK SIX

  17

  “Address me,” you insist, “as Long,”

  Longbottom. The contraction’s wrong.

  Surely you wouldn’t make the same

  Mistake if Cockburn were your name?

  20

  “Why don’t you ever ask a favour?”

  “Then lend me a hundred,” I replied.

  And now you stall and hedge and waver;

  For ten whole days you’ve crucified

  Our nerves—until I’m on my knees

  Begging you, “Phoebus, say no, please!”

  45

  Promiscuous girls, you’ve had your fun:

  Now marry and “cleave unto one”

      Lawfully. What a hope!

  Laetoria, who’s about to wed

  Lygdus, will find the double bed

      Offers her twice the scope.

  46

  The four-horse chariot of the Blues,

  When Catianus plies the whip,

  Drops back—to win the bribe and lose

  The race. Consummate jockeyship!

  48

  Pomponius, when loud applause

  Salutes you from your client-guests,

&n
bsp; Don’t fool yourself: good food’s the cause

  And not your after-dinner jests.

  51

  Because you’re always giving splendid

  Dinners and never ask me, I’ve

  Planned my revenge. I’m so offended

  By now that if you beg me, “Please

  Come to my house,” on bended knees

  I’ll … what will I do to you? Arrive!

  52

  His master’s grief now, once his joy,

  Here lies Pantagathus, a boy

  So dexterous one could never feel

  The touch when his tonsorial steel

  Trimmed the unruly hairs or sheared

  The stubble of a stubborn beard.

  Earth, treat him, as is only right,

  As gently as his hand was light.

  60

  All Rome is mad about my book:

  It’s praised, they hum the lines, shops stock it,

  It peeps from every hand and pocket.

  There’s a man reading it! Just look—

  He blushes, turns pale, reels, yawns, curses.

  That’s what I’m after. Bravo, verses!

  63

  You know you’re being got at, you’re aware

  He’s nothing but a fortune-hunting crook,

  And yet, poor fool, you’ve named him as your heir

  To step into your shoes. “Ah, but he sent

  Me presents that were quite magnificent.”

  That was mere bait: didn’t you spot the hook?

  Can a fish love an angler? Do you believe

  That he’ll feel sorrow when you die? Just leave

  Him nothing—then he’ll genuinely grieve.