Social Commentaries
Book III, Epigram 36 (Ker)
Translated by Walter C. A. Ker (1919–20) · From Epigrams (Loeb, 1919–20)
The duties of a new and recent friend you bid me perform towards you, Fabianus; that shivering at early morn I should pay my respects to you continually; that your chair should drag me through the midst of the mud; that when I am fagged out I should follow you at the tenth hour, or later, to the warm baths of Agrippa, although I myself bathe at those of Titus. Is this what I have deserved, Fabianus, for my thirty Decembers of service, to be always a raw recruit to your friendship? Is this what I have deserved, Fabianus, that, when my toga (my own purchase) is threadbare, you think that I have not yet deserved my discharge?
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Cite this poem
MLA
Martial. “Book III, Epigram 36 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/576/.
Chicago
Martial. “Book III, Epigram 36 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/576/.
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