Martial, Epigrammata

Argenti potuit pondera quinque puer!

could a boy have carried five pounds of silver!

LIV

LIV

Semper mane mihi de me mera somnia narras,

Every morning you tell me nothing but dreams about me,

Quae moveant animum sollicitentque meum.

to stir my mind and make it anxious.

Iam prior ad faecem, sed et haec vindemia venit,

Already last year’s vintage, and this one too, has come down to the dregs,

Exorat noctes dum mihi saga tuas;

while a wise woman expiates your nights for me;

Consumpsi salsasque molas et turis acervos;

I have used up salted meal and heaps of incense;

Decrevere greges, dum cadit agna frequens;

my flocks have dwindled, as lamb after lamb falls;

Non porcus, non chortis aves, non ova supersunt.

not a pig, not a farmyard bird, not an egg is left.

Aut vigila aut dormi, Nasidiane, tibi.

Either stay awake, Nasidianus, or sleep for yourself.

LV

LV

Nulli munera, Chreste, si remittis,

If you send gifts back to no one, Chrestus,

A matre doctus nec rogare Iudaeus,

nor the Jew taught by his mother to beg,

Nec sulphuratae lippus institor mercis.

nor the bleary-eyed pedlar of sulphured wares.

Numerare pigri damna quis potest somni?

Who can count the losses of lazy sleep?

Dicet quot aera verberent manus urbis,

He will tell how many bronzes the city’s hands beat

Cum secta Colcho Luna vapulat rhombo.

when the Moon, cut by the Colchian rhombus [magic wheel], is beaten.

Tu, Sparse, nescis ista, nec potes scire,

You, Sparsus, know nothing of these things, nor can you know,

Petilianis delicatus in regnis,

living in luxury on your Petilian domain,