“No trade more pleasant is, no art, Than ours who play the flatterer’s part. The painter overworked gets cross, Your farmer learns his risk by loss; While care and pains each workman takes, “Laugh and get fat” _our_ motto makes. Fun, laughter, banter, drink, I hold Are life’s chief pleasures--next to gold.” “I have a vintner near who keeps a shop, The only man who, when I want a drop, Mixes my grog to suit my special taste; Not neat,--nor letting water run to waste.” “Wives are bad property, I’d have you know,-- Except in countries where grapes do not grow.” “’Tis life in paradise to find a host To dine with, where you’ve not to count the cost. And so new shifts to try I shall not pause, To get a bite that’s toothsome for my jaws.” “One single thing I trust a woman saying, To other statements no attention paying: ‘When I am dead, I won’t return to grieve you.’ Till death takes place, in naught else I’ll believe you.” “What! when you court concealment, will you tell The matter to a woman? Just as well Tell all the criers in the public squares! ’Tis hard to say which of them louder blares.” “Married? He’s done for! Ah! I had misgiving. And yet I only lately left him living.” “Two states there are that we can always prove,-- If one’s in liquor, and if one’s in love. Both words and looks these two conditions show; By these if the denial’s false we know.” Another epigrammatist was ANAXANDRIADES He who composed the ditty, “Health is best, Good looks come next, then money,” and the rest, Right in the first, in the other two was wrong. None but a madman could have made that song! Next after “health” comes “wealth”; your handsome face, When pinched by famine, loses all its grace. A man who doubts if he should marry, Or thinks he has good cause to tarry, Is foolish if he takes a wife, The source of half the plagues in life! A poor man to a rich wife sold Exchanges liberty for gold. If she has nothing, then, ’tis true, There is a different ill to rue; For now he has, with all his need, Two mouths instead of one to feed. Perhaps she’s ugly; married life Thenceforth is never-ending strife! Perhaps she’s pretty; then _your_ boast Is made by all your friends their toast. Does ugly, handsome, poor, or rich, Bring most ill luck?--I know not which. One course in life there is that’s hard to roam, Back from a husband’s to a father’s home; And every decent wife should fear to tread it; The “homing heat” wins nothing but discredit. Other Greek wits offer these: EUBULUS