Book I, Epigram 53 (Ker)

There is one page of yours, Fidentinus, in a book of mine — a page, too, stamped by the distinct likeness of its master — which convicts your poems of palpable theft. So, when set among them, a Lingonian cowled cloak defiles with greasy wool the violet-purple robes of town; so crocks from Arretium degrade crystal glass; so a black raven, perchance wandering on Cayster's banks, is laughed at among Leda's swans; so, when a sacred grove is afire with the varied notes of the Athenian nightingale, an impudent jay jars on those Attic notes of woe. My books need no title or judge to prove them; your page stares you in the face, and calls you "thief."