Social Commentaries
Book V, Epigram 80 (Ker)
Translated by Walter C. A. Ker (1919–20) · From Epigrams (Loeb, 1919–20)
Less than an hour, if you are at leisure, you may give me, and charge to my account, Severus, while you read and criticise my trifles. "'Tis hard to spoil one's holiday." Yet I ask you to endure and put up with this loss. If you read them — am I too presumptuous? — along with eloquent Secundus, this little book is likely to owe you much more than it owes its author. For it will be free from anxiety, nor will it look upon the restless stone of weary Sisyphus, when the censorial file of the learned Secundus, aided by my Severus, has scored it.
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Cite this poem
MLA
Martial. “Book V, Epigram 80 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/799/.
Chicago
Martial. “Book V, Epigram 80 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/799/.
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