Book X, Epigram 70 (Ker)

Because scarcely one book of mine is published in a whole year, I am by you, learned Potitus, accused of laziness. But how much more justly should you wonder that one is published at all, when often whole days of mine slip away. Before daybreak I call on friends who do not return my call, and I offer congratulations to many: no one, Potitus, offers them to me. Now my signet-ring seals a document at the temple of Diana the Light-bringer; now the first hour, now the fifth hurries me off. Now consul or praetor detains me, and his escorting band; often a poet is listened to a whole day long. Then also you cannot with impunity refuse a pleader, nor if a rhetorician or grammarian Avere to ask you. After the tenth hour, fagged out, I make for the baths and my hundred farthings. When, Potitus, shall a book be written?