Social Commentaries
Book X, Epigram 3 (Ker)
Translated by Walter C. A. Ker (1919–20) · From Epigrams (Loeb, 1919–20)
The scurrilities of home-born slaves, low railinff, and the foul insults of a hawker's tongue, which the broker of shattered Vatinian glasses would reject as the price of a sulphur match, a certain skulking poet scatters abroad, and would have them appear as mine. Do you believe this, 'Priscus? that a parrot speaks with the voice of a quail, and Canus longs to be a bagpipe-player? Far from poems of mine be black repute, poems which lustrous fame uplifts on pinions white. Why should I toil to be known so evilly when stillness can cost me nothing?
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Cite this poem
MLA
Martial. “Book X, Epigram 3 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/1168/.
Chicago
Martial. “Book X, Epigram 3 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/1168/.
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