Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/39



tabic wit or something (if such there be) even more practised, is more clumsy than the clumsy country, whenever he touches poetry; and at the same time he is never so complacent as when he is writing a poem, he delights in himself and admires himself so much. True enough, we all arc under the same delusion, and there is no one whom you may not see to be a Suffenus in one thing or another. Every- body has his own fault assigned to him: but we do not see that part of the bag which hangs on our back.

Furius, you who have neither a slave, nor a moneybox, nor a bug, nor a spider, nor a fire, but who have a father and a stepmother too, whose teeth can chew even a flintstone, you lead a merry life with your father and that dry stick, your father's wife. No wonder: you all enjoy the best health, your digestions are excellent, you have nothing to be afraid of; fires, dilapidations, cruel pilferings, plots to poison you, other chances of danger. And besides this, your bodies are drier than horn, or drier still if drier there be, what with sun and cold and fasting. How can you, Furius, be otherwise than well and prosperous? You are free from sweat, free from spittle and rheum and tiresome running of the nose.

Since you have such blessings as these, Furius, do not despise them nor think lightly of them; and cease to pray, as you do, for the hundred sestertia; to for you are quite well off enough as it is.