Book XI, Epigram 56 (Ker)

Because you. Stoic Chaeremon, so much praise death, do you want me to admire and look up to your mind? 'Tis a jug with a broken handle that creates this virtue of yours, and a melancholy hearth chill with no fire, and a beggar's rug, and bugs and the framework of a bare truckle-bed, and a short toga, your one covering night and day alike. Oh, what a great man you are, who can do without dregs of red vinegar and straw and black bread! Come, imagine your pillow swells with Leuconian wool, and that close-napped purple binds your couches, and a boy waits upon you who, while he mixed the Caecuban yesterday, distracted your guests with his rosy lips! Oh, how you will long to live Nestor's years thrice over, and wish to lose no moment of any day! In narrow means 'tis easy to despise life: he acts the strong man who is wretched and can endure.