Carmina

That Suffenus, Varus, whom you know well, is a man fair spoken, witty and urbane, and one who makes lengthy verses. I think he has written at full length ten thousand or more, nor are they set down, as commonly, on scraped parchment: regal paper, new boards, new bosses, straps, red parchment, the whole thing ruled with the lead and smoothed off with the pumice. But when you read these, that refined and urbane Suffenus seems on the contrary to be a mere goatherd or ditch-digger, so great and shocking is the change. What can we think of this? The same man, who just now seemed a man-about-town, or if anything could be more polished than that, is stupider than the stupid countryside as soon as he touches poetry, and nor is the same man ever as happy as when he is writing poetry—so greatly is he pleased with himself, so much does he admire himself. Still, we are all the same and are deceived, nor is there any man in whom you can not see a Suffenus in some one point. Each of us has his assigned delusion: but we see not what's in the wallet on our back.

Furius, you who have neither a slave, nor a coffer, nor a bug, nor a spider, nor fire, but have both a father and a step-mother whose teeth can munch up even flints,—you live finely with your father, and with your father's wooden spouse. And no wonder: for you are all in good health, finely you digest, you fear nothing, not arson, not the fall of your house, not impious thefts, not plots of poison, no perilous happenings whatsoever. And you have bodies drier than horn (or if there is anything more arid still, parched by sun, frost, and famine. So why is it not happy and well with you? Sweat is a stranger to you, absent also are saliva, phlegm, and evil nose-snot. Add to this cleanliness the thing that's still more cleanly, that your backside is purer than a salt-cellar, nor do you crap ten times in the whole year, and then it is harder than beans and pebbles; and if you rub and crumble it in your hands, you can't ever dirty a finger. Spurn not hese goodly gifts and favours, Furius, nor think lightly of them; and stop always begging for a hundred sesterces: for you are happy enough!