Book X, Epigram 19 (Ker)

This little book, not learned enough, nor very strict in tone, yet not all unrefined, go, my Thalia, and carry to eloquent Pliny: short is your labour, when you have crossed the Subura, in breasting the steep path. There you will at once notice Orpheus, spraysprinkled, crowning his drenched audience, and the wild beasts marvelling at his song, and the Monarch's bird that bore to the Thunderer the ravished Phrygian; there stands the modest dwelling of your own Pedo, its frieze graven with eagle of lesser wing. But take heed you give no drunken knock on Eloquence's door at a time that is not yours; all the day he devotes to serious study, while he prepares for the ears of the Hundred Court that which time and posterity may compare even with Arpinum's pages. Safer will you go at the time of the latekindled lamps; that hour is yours when Lyaeus is in revel, when the rose is queen, when locks are drenched. Then let even unbendinj; Catos read me.