CHORUS: Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned Apollo's laurel-bough, That sometime grew within this learnéd man. Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise, Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practice more than heavenly power permits. MARTIAL[Y] Epigrams, Epitaphs and Poems _I.--Satiric Pieces and Epigrams_ He unto whom thou art so partial, O reader! is the well-known Martial, The Epigrammatist: while living Give him the fame thou wouldst be giving; So shall he hear, and feel, and know it-- Post-obits rarely reach a poet.--_Byron_. MARTIAL ON HIS WORK Some things are good, some fair, but more you'll say Are bad herein--all books are made that way! FOOTNOTES: [Y] Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis) was born at Bilbilis, in Spain, about 40 A.D. He went to Rome when twenty-four, and by attaching himself to the influential family of his fellow Spaniards, Seneca and Lucan, won his first introduction to Roman society. The earliest of his books which we possess celebrates the games associated with the dedication of the Flavian amphitheatre, the Colosseum, by Titus, in 80 A.D. Most of his other books belong to the reign of Domitian, to whom he cringed with fulsome adulation. After a residence in Rome during thirty-four years, he returned to Spain. He died probably soon after 102 A.D. Martial's importance to literature rests chiefly on two facts. He made a permanent impress upon the epigram by his gift of concise and vigorous utterance, culminating in a characteristically sharp sting; and he left in his verses, even where they are coarsest, an extraordinarily graphic index to the pleasure-loving and often corrupt society of his day. Martial had no deep seriousness of outlook upon life; yet he had better things in him than flippancy. He wearied of his long career of attendance upon patrons who requited him but shabbily; and with considerable taste for rural scenery, he longed for a more open-air existence than was attainable in Rome. Where he best exhibited genuine feeling was in his laments for the dead and his affection for friends. With the exception of the introductory piece from Byron, the verse translations here are by Professor Wight Duff. ON FREEDOM OF LANGUAGE Strict censure may this harmless sport endure: My page is wanton, but my life is pure. THE AIM OF THE EPIGRAMS My satire knoweth how to keep due bounds: Sparing the sinner, 'tis the sin it rounds. ON A SPENDTHRIFT Castor on buying doth a fortune spend: Castor will take to selling in the end! TO A RECITER WHO BAWLED Why wrap your throat with wool before you read? _Our_ ears stand rather of the wool in need! TO AN APOLOGETIC RECITER