Book XI, Epigram 27 (Ker)

You are a man of iron if you can show any amorous power, Flaccus, when your mistress prays you for six helpings of fish-pickle, or asks for two slices of tunny, or a skinny lizard-fish, and does not think herself worth a whole bunch of gra[)es — a woman to whom her maid delightedly carries anchovy sauce in a dark earthenware platter, to be immediately gulped down; or, who, when she has hardened her brow and laid aside all shame, solicits five greasy skins to make a small mantle. But let my mistress demand of me a pound of nard,i or emeralds, or a pair of sardonyxes, and not look at any but prime silk from the Tuscan street, or let her beg a hundred gold coins just as if they were pence. Now do you imagine I am willing to give these things to a girl? I am not; but that a girl should be worthy of these things, I do wish.