by Martial
the rumpled roses, Polla, from your hair.
11.92
Whoever calls you “vicious,” Zoilus, lies.
You’re not a vicious person; you’re pure vice.
11.93
Flames took the home of poet Theodorus.
Are the Muses and Phoebus pleased with this disaster?
What a great crime and insult to the gods
not to have burned together home and master!
11.96
German, the Marcian leaps here, not the Rhine.
Why block a boy from the ample fountain’s spray?
The victors’ stream should not ease captive thirst,
barbarian, while a town slave’s pushed away.
11.97
Four times a night I manage, Telesilla—but with you,
damn me if once in four years isn’t more than I can do.
11.99
When rising from your chair, I’ve often noticed,
you’re buggered, Lesbia, by your wretched dress.
You tug with your right and left hand till you free it,
blubbering and moaning with distress.
It’s held so by your asshole’s Clashing Rocks
as it enters where your massive buttocks meet.
Would you correct this ugly fault? Here’s how:
neither stand up, I’d say, nor take a seat.
11.101
Flaccus, could you see Thais, who’s so spare?
I think that you can see what isn’t there.
11.102
Lydia, he who said your flesh was lovely,
but not your face, did not distort the facts.
You would look good if you’d shut up and lie
mute as a painting or a bust in wax.
But when you speak, you spoil your flesh, as well.
No tongue can do itself more injury.
Make sure the aedile doesn’t see and hear you:
a talking statue is a prodigy.
11.103
Your mind and face, Safronius, are so mild
I marvel that you could beget a child.
11.105
You used to send a pound; now it’s decreased
to a quarter, Garricus. Pay me half, at least.
11.106
If, Vibius Maximus, you’ve time for greetings,
read just this; you’re too occupied to view
them all and none too fond of what takes effort.
You’ve skipped these four lines, also? Wise of you.
11.108
Reader, so long a book should satisfy you,
yet still “a few more couplets,” you reply.
But boys want food and Lupus wants his interest.
Pay up! You’re silent, playing deaf ? Goodbye.
Book Twelve
12.7
If she has just as many years, all told,
as hairs on her head, Ligeia’s three years old.
12.9
Most gentle Caesar, Palma rules our Spaniards,
and Peace abroad enjoys his mild command.
We gladly thank you for so great a gift:
you’ve sent your own good nature to our land.
12.10
Although worth millions, Africanus hunts a legacy.
To many, Fortune gives too much, enough to nobody.
12.12
When you’ve drunk all night, you promise all things, but bestow
nothing next day. Drink early, Pollio.
12.13
The rich believe it pays to get irate—
to give is costlier, Auctus, than to hate.
12.16
You sold three little fields
to buy three slave boys; now
you still have, Labienus,
three little fields to plow.
12.17
You often groan, Laetinus, and ask why
your fever stays so many days with you.
It rides your litter, bathes with you, and dines
on mushrooms, oysters, boar, and udder, too.
It’s often drunk on Setine or Falernian,
quaffs only Caecuban that snow has chilled.
It lies enwreathed in roses, dark with unguents,
and sleeps on purple couches, feather filled.
Living so well with you, so cosseted,
why would it move to Dama’s house instead?
12.18
While you, perhaps, roam loud Subura, restless,
or trudge Diana’s hill, your sweaty gown
fanning you through the thresholds of the mighty,
Juvenal, a wanderer worn down
by the greater and the lesser Caelian hills,
my Bilbilis, which vaunts her iron and gold,
returned to after numerous Decembers,
received me, now a rustic, to her fold.
Here, idle, I take pleasant pains to visit
Boterdus and Platea (so bizarre
are names in Celtiberian lands), and revel
in huge, unseemly bouts of sleep, which are
often unbroken well past nine or ten,
paying myself back fully now at last
for thirty years of vigils. Togas now
are quite unknown, but when I ask, I’m passed
the nearest garment from a broken chair.
Rising, I’m welcomed by a hearth with lots
of splendid logs from nearby oak-woods, crowned
by the steward’s wife with hordes of cooking pots.
The huntsman follows, but the sort you’d wish
to have beside you in a hidden wood.
My smooth-skinned steward gives my boys their food
and begs to cut his long hair. Truly I
rejoice to live like this, like this to die.
12.20
Themison has no wife—and never missed her.
Fabullus, you ask why? He has a sister.
12.22
In few words, just how ugly is
one-eyed Philaenis? To my mind,
Fabullus, she’d look better blind.
12.23
You use bought teeth and hair without a thought.
But, Laelia, an eye? That can’t be bought.
12.26
The bandits fucked you, Saenia, so you say;
however, all the bandits say “No way!”
12.27
While I drink two drafts, you drink two—plus nine.
And you grumble, Cinna, that we drink different wine?
12.30
So what if Aper’s sober! I commend
abstinence in a slave, not in a friend.
12.31
This grove, these springs, this arbor of laced vines,
this channeled flowing stream, the grassy fields;
fresh vegetables, not nipped by January;
rose beds that equal Paestum’s twofold yields;
the household eel that swims in fenced-in waters;
the whitewashed turret holding birds as white—
these are my lady’s gifts. Marcella gave
this house, this little realm, to me outright
when, after thirty-five years, I came home.
If offered her father’s gardens by Nausicaa,
I’d tell Alcinous, “I prefer my own.”
12.34
The summers, Julius, that we’ve shared,
if I recall, were thirty-four.
Their sweets were mixed with bitters, yet
still the delightful times were more.
If pebbles marking good and bad
were piled in two heaps, here and there,
the white ones would surpass the black.
To shield your heart from biting care
and shun some kinds of bitterness,
don’t grow too close to any friend:
your joy and grief will both be less.
12.35
You often tell me you’ve been sodomized,
Callistratus, as if you know me well.
&nb
sp; You’re not as candid as you wish to seem.
Who tells such things has more he doesn’t tell.
12.40
You lie and I believe it. You recite bad verse: I praise it.
You sing: I sing. You drink: I drink. You fart and I play dumb.
I lose to you, Pontilianus, each time we play checkers.
You do one thing without me—on that subject, I stay mum.
For me you don’t do anything. “But once I’m dead,” you say,
“I’ll treat you well.” I don’t want anything—but die today.
12.42
Bearded Callistratus wed rugged Afer
the way a virgin usually is mated.
The torches shone, his face was veiled in orange,
the ritual words were cried, the dowry stated.
Rome, is this still unsatisfactory? Maybe
you’re waiting for the bride to have a baby?
12.45
With kidskin you conceal your bare
temples and pate, in place of hair.
How witty was the man who said,
Phoebus, you have a well-shod head.
12.46
You’re difficult and easy, sweet and tart.
I cannot live with you, nor live apart.
12.47
Lupercus and Gallus sell their verse for gain.
Now, Classicus, say poets are insane!
12.51
Why’s Fabullinus easy to deceive?
A good man, Aulus, always is naïve.
12.56
Ten times or more a year you’re taken ill,
but, Polycharmus, we’re the ones who suffer.
Each time you rise, you ask your friends for presents.
For shame! This time get sick and don’t recover.
12.58
Your wife says you like slave girls; she’s attached
to litter-men. Alauda, you’re well matched.
12.61
You fear I’ll write a brief and lively poem
attacking you, Ligurra, and you yearn
to seem one who would merit such a fear.
Your wish is vain and so is your concern.
Lions of Libya roar at bulls; they leave
butterflies unmolested. If you’re keen
to have men read of you, find some drunk bard
of the dark arch, who scrawls on a latrine,
in clumsy charcoal or in crumbling chalk,
verses that people read while they are shitting.
To mark your brow with my brand isn’t fitting.
12.64
One finer in face and hair than rosy pageboys, Cinna placed
among his cooks. Cinna is such a glutton in his taste!
12.65
Fair Phyllis had obliged me all night long,
amply, in every manner. As I bent
my mind next morning on what gift to give her—
a pound of Niceros’ or Cosmus’ scent,
great weights of Spanish wool, or ten gold coins
from Caesar’s mint—she pressed her lips to mine
in a long, coaxing kiss, like courting doves,
and started asking for a jar of wine.
12.69
Just like your pictures and drinking cups, to you,
Paulus, your friends are all authentic, too.
12.71
Nothing I ask for, Lygdus, you provide,
but formerly there’s nothing you denied.
12.73
You say I am your heir, Catullus. Still,
I won’t believe it till I read the will.
12.76
A jar of wine costs twenty cents; a peck of wheat costs four.
The farmer, drunk and overstuffed, has nothing anymore.
12.78
I didn’t write of you, Bithynicus. You say,
“I don’t believe it—swear!” I’d rather pay.
12.79
I’ve given much you asked me for—
and more. Yet still you ask for more.
One, Atticilla, who will stick
at no request will suck a dick.
12.80
Callistratus praises all, not those he should.
If no one’s bad, can anyone be good?
12.81
For the Saturnalia, Umber used to send me
a light coat as a present. He was poor.
He sends light broth now, for he’s poor no more.
12.84
Reluctant, Polytimus, to spoil your hair,
I’m glad now that I yielded to your prayer.
So Pelops shone, new shorn, hair laid aside,
revealing all his ivory to his bride.
12.85
You say the mouths of buggers stink.
Fabullus, if that’s true, do tell
where you think pussy-lickers smell.
12.86
You’ve thirty boys and thirty slave girls, too.
Your only cock won’t rise. What will you do?
12.87
Cotta complained he’d lost his sandals twice
because of a neglectful slave. He’s poor:
that slave is his whole staff. Astute and shrewd,
he found a method of preventing more
losses of what he can’t afford to lose:
he started dining out without his shoes.
12.91
Magulla, you share your husband’s bed
and the boy he sleeps with. Why not, too,
the boy who serves his wine? You sigh.
Aha! You fear he’ll poison you.
12.92
Priscus, you often ask what I’d be like
if I got wealth and power suddenly.
Can anyone foretell his future conduct?
If you were a lion, what kind would you be?
12.93
Labulla has found a way to kiss
her lover while her husband’s by.
She keeps on kissing her fool, a dwarf.
At once, before her kisses dry,
the lover grabs him and sends him back
to the smiling lady, bearing his.
What a great fool the husband is!
12.95
Istantius Rufus, read Mussetius’
books of buggery, which vie
with those of Sybaris, their sheets
infused with smutty wit. But try
to have a girl with you, or else
your own licentious hands will sound
the wedding song while you become
a husband with no bride around.
12.96
You know your husband’s faithfulness and habits,
and that no woman shares your marriage bed,
why fret, then, as though pages were your rivals,
whose charms are brief and very soon have fled?
Those boys, I’ll prove, give you more than their master:
they make you the sole woman for your mate,
and give what you don’t want to. “But I will,
so that his fickle love won’t stray,” you state.
That’s not the same: I want a Chian fig,
not large ones (and in case you haven’t known,
your kind is large). A wife should know her limits:
leave their part to the boys, and use your own.
12.97
Your wife’s the kind of girl a husband hardly
would ask for, Bassus, in his rashest prayer—
rich, noble, cultivated, chaste—and yet
you drain your loins in slave boys with long hair,
purchased with your wife’s dowry. That’s the reason
the cock she bought for many thousands lies
so weak when it returns that coaxing words
or a soft thumb’s request won’t make it rise.
Feel shame for once! We’ll sue if you withhold it.
Bassus, the penis isn’t yours; you sold it.
Notes
Book One
1.1. By
the time Martial published book 1 of his epigrams (around 86 CE), he was already well known for his three previous collections: De Spectaculis (about the shows at the Colosseum), Xenia (mottos to accompany gifts of food or wine), and Apophoreta (mottos to accompany presents for the Saturnalia) (Shackleton Bailey 1:2–3).
1.9. Bellus, which could mean “handsome, nice, pleasant,” was usually used ironically by Martial (Howell, Commentary 128).
1.10. Martial suggests that Maronilla is rich and consumptive.
1.13. Pliny, in his Epistles 3.16, recounts Arria’s suicide after her husband Caecina Paetus was involved in a failed revolt against Emperor Claudius in 42 CE. She stabbed herself and handed the sword to him, saying, “Paete, non dolet” (Paetus, it doesn’t hurt) (cited in Howell, Commentary 136–37). The rest of the quote in Martial’s epigram is his own invention (Howell, Commentary 137).