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TO MARRUCINUS ASINIUS.

12.

ARRUCINUS ASINIUS, you ply your left hand In a fashion that gentlemen don't understand; Their napkins you steal, when the rest of the guests Are intent on the flow of the wine and the jests. You fancy this fun? Why, you goose, don't That this sort of thing is unseemly and low? You think, I'm no judge? But that you'll scarce say Of Pollio, your brother, a talent who'd pay,

Yourself of these pilfering habits to free,

you know

For who knows so well, what is true fun, as he?

So I give you your choice. Send my napkin, and soon,
Or expect to be lash'd by whole yards of lampoon.
'Tis not for its value I prize it-don't sneer!
But as a memento of friends who are dear.
'Tis one of a set that Fabullus from Spain
And Verannius sent me—a gift from the twain ;
So the napkins, of course, are as dear to Catullus
As the givers, Verannius himself and Fabullus.

INVITATION TO DINNER.

13.

OU dine with me, Fabullus mine,
On Friday next, at half-past two;
And I can promise that you'll dine
As well as man need wish to do;

If you bring with you, when you come,
A dinner of the very best,

And lots of wine and mirth, and some
Fair girl to give the whole a zest.

'Tis if you bring these-mark me now!
That you're to have the best of dinners;
For
your Catullus' purse, I vow,

Has nothing in't but long-legg'd spinners.

But if you don't, you'll have to fast

On simple welcome and thin air;

And, as a sauce to your repast,

I'll treat you to a perfume rare—

A perfume so divine, 'tis odds,

When you have smelt its fragrance, whether

You won't devoutly pray the gods

To make you straight all nose together!

TO CALVUS.

14.

HEE did I not more dearly prize,
Most pleasant Calvus, than mine eyes,
I'd hate thee with Vatinian hate

For sending what thou didst of late?
What had I done, what said, to be
Belaboured so remorselessly

With such a mass of maudlin verse?
May Jove with countless mischiefs curse
The client, who on thee bestow'd
Of fustian rascals such a load!
But if, as shrewdly I surmise,
That pedant Sylla sent this prize
Of new and most recondite stuff,
I can't feel gratitude enough,
That all thy toil in his defence
Has had such fitting recompence.

Gods! what a book! and this you send

To your Catullus, to your friend,

His comfort wholly to undo,

Upon the Saturnalia, too,

Of all our holidays the day,

One most relies on to be gay.

A harmless jest, you say? But no,
I shan't so lightly let you go;
For by the peep of sunrise I
To all the booksellers will fly,

And gathering into one vile hash
Suffenus' versicles, the trash,

Rank poison all, indited by
The Casii and Aquinii,

With these I'll quit you, throe for throe,
The pangs you've made me undergo.

But you, ye wretched sons of rhyme, The plagues and vermin of the time, Hence to that grim infernal haunt,

From which ye sprang! Hence, hence, avaunt!

TO THE GOD OF GARDENS.

18.

HIS grove I vow and consecrate to thee,
Priapus! thou whose home and woodland seat
Are fix'd at Lampsacus, because the sea

Of Hellespont, with oysters more replete
Than any sea besides, thee worships most
Through all the cities that enrich her coast!

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