English

Though you send me no presents I'd not care a bit
If it were not that Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Kit
Get plenty. The next time you play dirty tricks,
I'll ask you on some Jewish gentry to fix.

All the presents this year that at Christmas you got
You have sent on to me — and they are a choice lot!
Seven toothpicks, twelve tablets, a napkin, a mug,
A half-peck of beans, and a sponge, and a jug
Of Laletan wine, some dried prunes, and a casket
Of Picenian olives, and figs in a basket.
I think that in all they were worth half a crown:
Yet it took eight big footmen to carry them down.
You'ld have found it less trouble one page-boy to send
With five pounds of plate as your present, my friend.

Fountain wherein Ianthis doth delight,
Glory of garden and of mansion bright,
Where youths in marble beauty deck the mead,
And each cool wave reflects a Ganymede,
What does Alcides in yon woodland shrine?
Why holds the god a grot so near to thine?
Does he keep guard against the Naiads, pray,
Lest every Hylas should be stolen away?

Eggs for your meal and dessert apples, friend,
As gifts from my suburban home I send.

At three hundred tables your fare might be spread,
But with you we find three hundred waiters instead.
They snatch off the plates and make each course fly fast.
Enough! I don't care for a walking repast.

Sura , 'mid learned men most famed of all,
Whose tongue our ancient grandsires did recall,
Oh by what grace did Fate to us restore
Thy life which near had come to Lethe's shore!
Our fears were past: at ease we wept and sighed
And in our thoughts at least our friend had died.

But death's dark king that odium could not brave,
And to the fates again their distaff gave.
Thou knowest now what grief thy false death brought
And canst enjoy posthumous fame unsought.
Live as on booty then: pluck joy in haste:

Here in this bust your dear Caesonius lives,
And in the wax his very look survives.
Nero condemned him; but you boldly dared
To condemn the tyrant and his exile shared.
You would not in the consul's cortege go,
But went, a banished man, to Scylla's flow.
If names I write shall long endurance have
And these my books survive my mortal grave,
Know, future ages and this age to-day,
His care for Seneca you did him repay.

Here lies the sage, long in the palace known,
Who bore the Emperor's favour and his frown
Undaunted. By their children's love at rest
Husband and wife are of one grave possessed.
She died in youth, robbed of her life's spring bloom;
The father to his ninetieth year did come.
Yet all who see his children's tears believe
That they for one untimely taken grieve.

How is it, you ask, that a rascal so low,
As Charinus could yet this one service bestow?
I'll explain. Was not Nero a monster confessed,
Yet are not his baths still accounted the best?
At this some base knave with a sly sneering nod
May remark — " To the gifts of our master and god
You prefer something else" — Nay, that is your vile fancy.
I preferred Nero's baths to the baths of a Nancy.

Your toga is filthy, your shoes white as snow;
But your toga hangs down so your feet do not show.
Pull it up, silly fellow, and let them appear:
As it is their effect is quite wasted, I fear.