Book VI, Epigram 49 (Ker)

Not hewn am I of fragile elm, nor is my column, which stands upright with rigid shaft, shaped of common wood; but it was born of the long-lived cypress, that dreads not cycles an hundred times accomplished, nor the decay of prolonged age. This fear thou, whoever thou art, O evil man! For if with robber hand thou shalt wound of yonder vine even its smallest shoots, there shall be born — though thou wouldst deny it — grafted on thee by this cypress-rod, a bunch of figs.