Thallus, hungry rascal you, as hurricane rapacious,
When winks occasion on the stroke, the gulls agape declaring: 5

Return the mantle home to me, you watch'd your hour to pilfer,
The fleecy napkin and the rings from Thynia quaintly graven,
Whatever you parade as yours, vain fool, a sham reversion:

Unglue the nails adroit to steal, unclench the spoil, deliver,
Lest yet that haunch voluptuous, those tender hands caressant, 10
Should take an ugly print severe, the scourge's heavy branding;

And strange to bruises you should heave, as heaves in open Ocean,
Some little hoy surprised adrift, when wails the windy water.

XXVI.

Draughts, dear Furius, if my villa faces,
'Tis not showery south, nor airy wester,
North's grim fury, nor east; 'tis only fifteen
Thousand sesterces, add two hundred over.
Draft unspeakable, icy, pestilential! 5

XXVII.

Boy, young caterer of Falernian olden,
Brim me cups of a fiercer harsher essence;
So Postumia, queen of healths presiding,
Bids, less thirsty the thirsty grape, the toper.
But dull water, avaunt. Away the wine-cup's 5
Sullen enemy; seek the sour, the solemn!
Here Thyonius hails his own elixir.

XXVIII.

Starving company, troop of hungry Piso,
Light of luggage, of outfit expeditious,
You, Veranius, you, my own Fabullus,

Say, what fortune? enough of empty masters,
Frost and famine, a lingering probation? 5

Stands your diary fair? is any profit
Enter'd _given_? as I to serve a praetor
Count each beggarly gift a timely profit.

Trust me, Memmius, you did aptly finger
My passivity, fool'd me most supinely. 10

Friends, confess it; in e'en as hard a fortune
You stand mulcted, on you a like abashless
Rake rides heavily. Court the great who wills it!

Gods and goddesses evil heap upon ye,
Rogues to Romulus and to Remus outcast. 15

XXIX.

Can any brook to see it, any tamely bear--
If any, gamester, epicure, a wanton, he--
Mamurra's own whatever all the curly Gauls
Did else inherit, or the lonely Briton isle?
Can you look on, look idly, filthy Romulus? 5

Shall he, in o'er-assumption, o'er-repletion he,