Carmen XIV (Cornish)

If I did not love you more than my own eyes, my dearest Calvus, I should hate you, as we all hate Vatinius, because of this gift of yours; for what have I done, or what have I said, that you should bring destruction upon me with all these poets? May the gods send down all their plagues upon that client of yours who sent you such a set of sinners. But if, as I suspect, this new and choice present is given you by Sulla the schoolmaster, then I am not vexed, but well and happy, because your labours are not lost. Great gods! what a portentous and accursed book! And this was the book which you sent your Catullus, to kill him off at once on the very day of the Saturnalia, best of days. No, no, you rogue, this shall not end so for you. For let the morning only come—I will be off to the shelves of the booksellers, sweep together Caesii, Aquini, Suffenus, and all such poisonous stuff, and with these penalties will I pay you back for your gift. You poets, meantime, farewell, away with you, back to that ill place whence you brought your cursed feet, you burdens of our age, you worst of poets.