Book I, Epigram 76 (Ker)

O you, whose friendship is no cheap reward for my labours, Flaccus, the hope and nursling of Antenor's settlement, put aside your Pierian lays and the lute of the Sisters; no maid among them will give you a penny. What seek you from Phoebus? 'Tis Minerva's box holds the coin; she is shrewd, she alone is usurer to all the gods. What can ivy wreaths of Bacchus give you? The tree of Pallas bows its varied leafage, and is dark with weight of fruit. Beyond its streams and the chaplets and lyres of the goddesses, Helicon has nought, nought beyond the loud but empty "bravo." What have you to do with Cirrha? what with naked Permessis? Rome's forum is nearer and richer. There is the ring of coin: but around the platforms of us poets and our sterile chairs there is only the chink of kisses.