Epigrams (Modern Library Classics)

by Martial

  It is clear that Martial never married—in spite of poems such as XI 104 where he writes in the person of a husband (when he uses the first person he is not necessarily being autobiographical). He was, however, granted the privileges accorded to a father of three children (introduced by Augustus as a means of raising the birthrate) by both Titus and Domitian. This was by no means the only way in which he benefited from imperial generosity. It may also have been Titus who gave him the (again titular) military office of tribune, which brought with it the status of a member of the equestrian class (second in rank to the senators). Domitian—who favoured Martial highly—has acquired the reputation of a Hitler, largely as a result of the picture presented by Tacitus, Juvenal, and other biased writers. In fact, for all but disaffected members of the senatorial class, against whom he waged a paranoiac vendetta, his reign was calm and prosperous, marked by beneficial social and moral legislation. The absurd notion—current then as now—that the first century A.D. was a period of “decadence,” with the Roman Empire already careering headlong towards its fall, is answered by Martial himself, at IX 70. Martial’s flattery of Domitian may seem gross to us (for example, the frequent comparisons, if not identifications, with Jupiter), and his abuse of him after his assassination is indefensible, though it is hard to blame him for knowing on which side his bread was buttered.

  Whether through imperial or private generosity, Martial’s material circumstances gradually became more and more comfortable. In the first book (I 117) he lives up three flights of stairs—in other words, in one of those tall and crowded blocks of flats which housed most of imperial Rome. Life in such flats was not very pleasant: there was no running water, or possibility of an open fire for warmth or cooking, and windows were closed by wooden shutters or canvas. For most people, a flat was probably just a place for sleeping (or trying to sleep—not easy, particularly since wheeled traffic was only allowed into the city at night) and keeping goods. Most of life would be led among the plentiful amenities supplied by either private enterprise or public generosity: the numerous eating-houses and taverns, gardens surrounded by colonnades, public lavatories (one at least centrally heated), and, above all, the bath establishments—of crucial importance to the Romans, who bathed every day, and for whom bath-time (before dinner) was an occasion not just for hygiene but for exercise, sociability, and even for more dubious pleasures (see, e.g., I 96; IX 33). The great imperial baths were open free, but many preferred the smaller private baths which charged a small entrance fee. The pleasures of the city also included frequent chariot-races and gladiatorial shows.

  Eventually—before 94 A.D.—Martial was able to exchange his flat for a small house of his own. He had already possessed a small country estate at Nomentum (Mentana), twenty miles north-east of Rome, for about ten years. He also tells us that he owned a pair of mules (VIII 61), and mentions several slaves (e.g., V 34). However, he still found life at Rome irksome, and its social duties interfered with his writing (X 74; IX 24). Finally he decided to leave. He had already, in about 87, gone off for a stay at Forum Cornelii (Imola, between Bologna and Ravenna). But in 98 (or soon after), after thirty-four years in Rome, he made up his mind to return for good to his beloved birthplace. The younger Pliny gave him some money to help him on his journey. At first he found life back in Bilbilis idyllic, not least because he had a generous local patron, a lady named Marcella (XII 31). He wrote a rapturous poem to his friend Juvenal, teasing him about the tedious client’s life he still lived at Rome (XII 18)—the comparison with Juvenal’s famous attack on life at Rome in his third satire (the one adapted by Johnson for his “London”) is intriguing. But before long he grew bored with provincial life—with people pestering him for help (XII 68), small-town scandal-mongering, and finding nothing to write about. In any case, although he was well able to appreciate the pleasures of country life (e.g., III 58; IV 66), the truest expression of his ideal existence is to be found in V 20, addressed to his closest friend, Julius Martialis—it is a catalogue of urban delights. An occasional break in the country was enough for him.

  Within a few years of his return to Bilbilis (certainly by 104), he was dead. His death was mourned by Pliny (Epistles III 21), who paid tribute to his talent, his keen wit, his candour. He doubted, however, if Martial’s work would survive. We may be glad that he was wrong. Not only did the poems survive, but their influence on succeeding ages was immense—Juvenal, the late Roman poets, medieval writers, the great crop of Renaissance and Baroque epigrammatists, and many poets of the eighteenth century were all deeply indebted to them.

  EPIGRAMS

  BOOK ONE

  1

  May I present myself—the man

  You read, admire and long to meet,

  Known the world over for his neat

  And witty epigrams? The name

  Is Martial. Thank you, earnest fan,

  For having granted me the fame

  Seldom enjoyed by a dead poet

  While I’m alive and here to know it.

  3

  Frail book, although there’s room for you to stay

  Snug on my shelves, you’d rather fly away

  To the bookshops and be published. How I pity

  Your ignorance of this supercilious city!

  Believe me, little one, our know-all crowd

  Is hard to please. Nobody sneers as loud

  As a Roman: old or young, even newly-born,

  He turns his nose up like a rhino horn.

  As soon as one hears the deafening “bravos!”

  And begins blowing kisses, up one goes

  Skywards, tossed in a blanket. And yet you,

  Fed up with the interminable “few,”

  “Final” revisions of your natural song

  By my strict pen, being a wild thing, long

  To try your wings and flutter about Rome.

  Off you go, then! You’re safer, though, at home.

  4

  Caesar, if you should chance to handle my book,

  I hope that you’ll relax the frowning look

  That rules the world. Soldiers are free to mock

  The triumphs of you emperors—there’s no shame

  In a general being made a laughing-stock.

  I beg you, read my verses with the same

  Face as you watch Latinus on the stage

  Or Thymele the dancer. Harmless wit

  You may, as Censor, reasonably permit:

  My life is strict, however lax my page.

  10

  Gemellus wants to marry Maronilla:

  He sighs, pleads, pesters, sends a daily present.

  Is she a beauty? No, a hideous peasant.

  What’s the attraction, then? That cough will kill her.

  27

  Last night, after five pints of wine,

  I said, “Procillus, come and dine

  Tomorrow.” You assumed I meant

  What I said (a dangerous precedent)

  And slyly jotted down a note

  Of my drunk offer. Let me quote

  A proverb from the Greek: “I hate

  An unforgetful drinking mate.”

  34

  Lesbia, why are your amours

  Always conducted behind open, unguarded doors?

  Why do you get more excitement out of a voyeur than a lover?

  Why is pleasure no pleasure when it’s under cover?

  Whores use a curtain, a bolt or a porter

  To bar the public—you won’t find many chinks in the red-light quarter.

  Ask Chione or Ias how to behave:

  Even the cheapest tart conceals her business inside a monumental grave.

  If I seem too hard on you, remember my objection

  Is not to fornication but detection.

  38

  They’re mine, but while a fool like you recites

  My poems I resign the author’s rights.

  46

  When you say, “Quick, I’m going to come,”

  H
edylus, I go limp and numb.

  But ask me to hold back my fire,

  And the brake accelerates desire.

  Dear boy, if you’re in such a hurry,

  Tell me to slow up, not to worry.

  47

  Diaulus, recently physician,

  Has set up now as a mortician:

  No change, though, in the clients’ condition.

  54

  If you’ve still room in your affections—

  For you have friends in all directions—

  For one more, may I occupy

  The vacant place? You can’t deny

  Me this simply because I’m “new”:

  All your old chums were once that, too.

  Think, Fuscus: might not in the end

  The newest prove the oldest friend?

  64

  That you’re young, beautiful and rich,

  Fabulla, no one can deny.

  But when you praise yourself too much,

  None of the epithets apply.

  73

  When you complaisantly allowed

  Any man, free of charge, to lay

  Hands on your wife, not one would play.

  But now you’ve posted a house guard

  There’s an enormous randy crowd.

  Caecilianus, you’re a card.

  77

  He’s healthy—yet he’s deathly pale;

  Seldom drinks wine and has a hale

  Digestion—but looks white and ill;

  Sunbathes, rouges his cheeks—and still

  Has a pasty face; licks all the cunts

  In Rome—and never blushes once.

  86

  Novius is so close a neighbour, I could stand

  At my window and touch him with a hand.

  “Lucky you,” you say.

  “I envy you being able to enjoy at all hours of the day

  The companionship of a true brother.”

  Not a bit of it. We couldn’t have less to do with each other

  If he were Terentianus, Governor of the Lower Nile.

  I’m not allowed to dine with him, he won’t vouchsafe a word or a smile.

  There’s no one so near and yet so distant in all Rome.

  Clearly one of us must find a new home.

  If you don’t want to see Novius, you should live next door

  Or, better still, in the same house, on the same floor.

  87

  Hoping, Fescennia, to overpower

  The reek of last night’s drinking, you devour

  Cosmus’ sweet-scented pastilles by the gross.

  But though they give your teeth a whitish gloss

  They fail to make your breath any less smelly

  When a belch boils from your abyss-like belly.

  In fact, blended with lozenges it’s much stronger,

  It travels farther and it lingers longer.

  Give up these stale, transparent tricks. A skunk

  Must be itself. Why not just be a drunk?

  89

  You’re always whispering in one’s ear

  “Secrets” the world might safely hear.

  You crack jokes, grumble, weep, accuse

  Your enemies, proclaim your views,

  Sing songs and shout and even keep

  Quiet in a whisper. It’s so deep

  A sickness that you seldom raise

  Your voice, Cinna, in Caesar’s praise.

  96

  My hobbling metre, if it’s not a task

  Too onerous for you, not too much to ask,

  Go and drop a few words in Maternus’ ear

  Just loud enough for him alone to hear.

  He favours drab, dark cloaks, he has a passion

  For wearing Baetic wool and grey; the fashion

  For scarlet he calls “degenerate,” “un-Roman,”

  And, as for mauve, that’s “only fit for women.”

  He’s all for “Nature”; yet, though no one’s duller

  In dress, his morals sport a different colour.

  He may demand the grounds of my suspicion.

  We bathe together, and his line of vision

  Keeps below waist-level, he devours

  Ocularly the boys under the showers,

  And his lips twitch at the sight of a luscious member.

  Did you ask his name? How odd, I can’t remember!

  107

  Dear Lucius Julius, you often sigh,

  “Write something great—you’re a lazy fellow.” Give

  Me leisure, all the time Maecenas found

  For Horace and his Virgil, and I’ll try

  To build a masterpiece destined to live

  And save my name from ashes. When the ground

  Is poor, the ox works listlessly; rich soil

  Tires, but there’s satisfaction then in toil.

  109

  Issa is naughtier than Catullus’ sparrow, Issa is more appealing than any girl,

  Issa is purer than a dove’s kiss, Issa is more precious than an Indian pearl,

  Issa is—to end this catalogue—

  Publius’ doted-on dog.

  When she whines, you’d think it was a human voice;

  She knows what it is to grieve and to rejoice.

  She lies on her master’s lap,

  Breathing so softly it’s inaudible, and takes her nap.

  When the call of nature can’t be resisted,

  She never lets a drop soil the quilt, but wakes you charmingly with a paw and asks to be set down and assisted.

  She’s so innocent of the facts of life

  That we’re unable to find a mate for such a delicate little wife.

  To prevent her last dog-day

  Taking her altogether away

  Publius has had her picture painted. The likeness is so complete

  That even Issa herself can’t compete.

  In fact, put both together and you can’t tell, which is which—

  Painting or bitch.

  117

  Lupercus, whenever you meet me

  You instantly greet me

  With, “Is it all right by you if I send

  My slave to pick up your book of epigrams? It’s only to lend:

  I’ll return it when I’ve read it.” There’s no call

  To trouble your boy. It’s a long haul

  To the Pear-tree district, and my flat

  Is up three flights of stairs, steep ones at that.

  You can find what you want nearer home. No doubt you often go

  Down Booksellers’ Row.

  Well, then, opposite Caesar’s Forum there’s a shop

  With door-posts plastered with advertisements from bottom to top,

  So that at a glance you can read

  The list of available poets. There I am. There’s no need

  To ask Atrectus (the owner’s name) for my scroll:

  Before you’ve said a word he’ll whip out of the first or second pigeon-hole

  Me,

  Pumice-stone-smoothed and purple-wrapped, for five denarii.

  Do I hear you say, “You’re not worth that expense”?

  Lupercus, you’ve got sense.

  118

  Caedicianus, if my reader

  After a hundred epigrams still

  Wants more, then he’s a greedy feeder

  Whom no amount of swill can fill.

  BOOK TWO

  3

  Sextus, you keep on saying

  You’re not in debt. I know.

  Without the means of paying

  One can’t be said to owe.

  9

  I wrote, she never replied:

  That goes on the debit side.

  And yet I’m sure she read it:

  That I put down as credit.

  11

  Observing Selius pacing to and fro

  And up and down Europa’s portico

  Late in the day, brow clouded, listless air

  Hinting at secret sorrows, grotesque nose


  Grazing the ground, hand clutching at his hair

  Or pummelling his breast, one might suppose

  He’d lost a friend or a brother. But the fact

  Is that his sons are flourishing—long life

  To both of them!—his property’s intact,

  His slaves are in good health, likewise his wife,

  His tenants pay, his bailiff doesn’t cheat.

  What’s wrong, then? No one’s asked him out to eat.

  15

  Hormus, it’s thoughtful of you, not stuck-up,

  Not to drink healths. Who’d risk sharing your cup?

  18

  I angle for your dinner invitations (oh, the shame

  Of doing it, but I do it!). You fish elsewhere. We’re the same.

  I attend your morning levée, and they tell me you’re not there,