Horace -- Translations into English; Latin poetry -- Translations into English
Now, come on, arraign with me luxury and Nomentanus; for reason will
evince that foolish spendthrifts are mad. This fellow, as soon as he
received a thousand talents of patrimony, issues an order that the
fishmonger, the fruiterer, the poulterer, the perfumer, and the impious
gang of the Tuscan alley, sausage-maker, and buffoons, the whole
shambles, together with [all] Velabrum, should come to his house in the
morning. What was the consequence? They came in crowds. The pander makes
a speech: "Whatever I, or whatever each of these has at home, believe it
to be yours: and give your order for it either directly, or to-morrow."
Hear what reply the considerate youth made: "You sleep booted in
Lucanian snow, that I may feast on a boar: you sweep the wintry seas for
fish: I am indolent, and unworthy to possess so much. Away with it: do
you take for your share ten hundred thousand sesterces; you as much; you
thrice the sum, from whose house your spouse runs, when called for, at
midnight." The son of Aesopus, [the actor] (that he might, forsooth,
swallow a million of sesterces at a draught), dissolved in vinegar a
precious pearl, which he had taken from the ear of Metella: how much
wiser was he [in doing this,] than if he had thrown the same into a
rapid river, or the common sewer? The progeny of Quintius Arrius, an
illustrious pair of brothers, twins in wickedness and trifling and the
love of depravity, used to dine upon nightingales bought at a vast
expense: to whom do these belong? Are they in their senses? Are they to
be marked With chalk, or with charcoal?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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