Book III, Epigram 93 (Ker)

As you have seen out three hundred consuls. Vetustilla, and have three hairs and four teeth, the breast of a grasshopper, the leg and complexion of an ant; as you carry a forehead more wrinkled than a woman's stole, and dugs as limp as spiders' webs; as, compared with those chaps of yours, the crocodile of Nile has narrow jaws, and Ravenna's frogs croak more agreeably, and the Atrian gnat hums more sweetly, and your vision is on a par with an owl's in the morning, and your odour is that of the husbands of she-goats, and you have the latter-end of a skinny duck, and your bony person would be too much for an old Cynic; as the bathmaii admits you among the tomb-frequenting whores only when he has extinguished his lamp; as winter continues for you all through the month of August, and not even a malarious fever can melt you; you venture, after having buried two hundred husbands, to yearn for marriage, and madly look for a man to itch for your burned out remnants. What, if he should wish to hoe a rock? Who will call you spouse, who wife, whom Philomelus has lately called his grandmother? But if you require your carcase to be clawed, let the marriage-bed from the dining-room of Orcus be laid out — this alone befits your nuptials — and let the corpse-cremator carry before the new bride the torches: only a funeral link can tickle those ancient sides.