Book IX, Epigram 11 (Ker)

A name born with the violets and the roses, after which the year's best part is called, that savours of Hybla and Attic flowers,' that smells of the nest of the lordly fowl; a name, sweeter than nectar divine, by which Cybele's loved boy and he who blends his draught for the Thunderer, would fain be called; whereto, shouldst thou sound it in the Palatine hall, Venuses and Cupids make answer; a name noble, soft, delicate — this I wished to utter in no rugged verse: but you, an obstinate syllable, rebel. Yet poets speak of Eiarinos; but they were Greeks, to whom nothing is denied, and whom it becomes to sound Ares short as Ares lonff. We cannot be so versatile, who court Muses more unbending.