You claim you're second to none of my friends, but I ask you, Crispus, what do you do to make it so? When I asked you to loan me a few thousand, you refused, although your heavy safe wasn't big enough to hold your cash. When did you give me a peck of beans or grain, although an Egyptian tenant farmer plows your fields? When was a short cloak sent to me in the cold winter time? When did half a pound of silver arrive at my door? I see no reason to believe in your "friendship" towards me, Crispus, other than your habit of farting in my presence.
Cedere de nostris nulli te dicis amicis.
Sed, sit ut hoc verum, quid, rogo, Crispe, facis?
Mutua cum peterem sestertia quinque, negasti,
Non caperet nummos cum gravis arca tuos.
Quando fabae nobis modium farrisve dedisti,
Cum tua Niliacus rura colonus aret?
Quando brevis gelidae missa est toga tempore brumae?
Argenti venit quando selibra mihi?
Nil aliud video, quo te credamus amicum,
Quam quod me coram pedere, Crispe, soles.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Friday, September 14, 2007
Friendship
Martial 10.15: