Book V, Epigram 10 (Ker)

"How shall I explain this — that to living men fame is denied, and that few readers love their own times?" Of a truth, Regulus, this is envy's way: ever to prefer the men of old to those new-born. Thus ungratefully we sigh for Pompey's old shadowy colonnade, so old men extol the poor temple restored by Catulus; you read Ennius, O Rome, though Maro is to your hand, and his own times laughed at Maeonides; seldom did the theatres applaud the crowned Menander; Corinna alone knew her Naso.- Yet be not too eager, O ye books of mine! So after death come glory, I hurry not.