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النشر الإلكتروني

TO AUFILENA.

I LIKE girls, Aufilena, of consciences nice,

For the favours they grant who are honestly paid; But

you, who have cheated, and taken the price Of the love you withhold, are an infamous jade.

'Tis an honest girl's part, what she's promised, to do; 'T were a modest one's not to have promised the

deed:

But she who can jilt, while she pockets like you

The money for favours she will not concede, Commits a base fraud, which would shame and disgrace The lowest and worst of the prostitute race.

THE GROWTH OF ADULTERY.

TO CINNA.

WHEN Pompey was Rome's Consul first,

'Twas but with two adulterers curst; And, Cinna, when again he reign'd, Those two, still unreform'd, remain’d. But, ah! so skill'd their trade to teach, A thousand then had sprung from each.

For easier much can love be grown
For others' wives than for our own.

TO MAMUR`ra.

ON HIS ESTATE.

JUSTLY, Mamurra, does your Formian land
The grateful epithet of rich command:

All rural wealth, all wholesome fruits abound,
And fish, and game, and plough'd and pasture ground.
Yet spite of all, how great your own distress,
Who squander three times more than you possess.
Rich then you are, if 'tis a name alone,

And means your farm's abundance, not your own.

TO GELLIUS.

GELLIUS, I oft in thought debated,

Whether I should the poem

send

I from Callimachus translated,
For you to criticise and mend.

I hoped it might have soothed your hate,
And all your weak attempts have ended,
Poor fly to sting my well-arm'd pate
By store of weapons well defended.

But vain I find is all my toil;
You will not to my wish incline.

So still

my cloak your darts shall foil;

While you shall keenly smart with mine.

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