Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/120

 Standing agape and straining knees and eyes At some rude sketch of fencers for a prize, Where, drawn in charcoal or red ochre, just As if alive, they parry and they thrust? Davus gets called a loiterer and a scamp, You (save the mark!) a critic of high stamp. If hot sweet-cakes should tempt me, I am naught: Do you say no to dainties as you ought? Am I worse trounced than you when I obey My stomach? true, my back is made to pay: But when you let rich tit-bits pass your lip That cost no trifle, do you 'scape the whip? Indulging to excess, you loathe your meat, And the bloat trunk betrays the gouty feet.
 * The lad's a rogue who goes by night to chop

A stolen flesh-brush at a fruiterer's shop: The man who sells a farm to buy good fare, Is there no slavery to the stomach there?
 * Then too you cannot spend an hour alone;

No company's more hateful than your own; You dodge and give yourself the slip; you seek In bed or in your cups from care to sneak: In vain: the black dog follows you, and hangs Close on your flying skirts with hungry fangs.
 * H. Where's there a stone?
 * D.Who wants it?
 * H.Or a pike?
 * D. Mere raving this, or verse-making belike.
 * H. Unless you're off at once, you'll join the eight

Who do their digging down at my estate.