Book I, Epigram 66 (Ker)

You mistake, you greedy thief of my works, who think you can become a poet at no more than the cost of a transcript and a cheap papyrus roll. Applause is not acquired for six or ten sesterces. Look out for unpublished poems and unfinished studies, which one man only knows of, and which the sire of the virgin sheet not yet grown rough by the contact of hard chins, keeps sealed up in his book-wallet. A well-known book cannot change its author. But if there be one with ends not yet smoothed with pumice, and not yet smart with its bosses and wrapper, buy it: such I possess, and no man shall know. Whoever recites another man's work, and so woos fame, ought not to buy a book, but — silence.