Book VIII, Epigram 3 (Ker)

"Five were sufficient; for six or seven books are too much: why do you want. Muse, to frolic still .'' Let there be some stint and an end: now nothing more can Fame give me; my book is thumbed everywhere; and wlien Messalla's pavements shall lie shivered by decay, and Licinus' towering marble shall be dust, yet me shall lips read, and many a sojourner shall carry my poems with him to hi? fatherland." I ended; when thus replied the ninth of the Sisters, her hair and vesture stained with unguent: "Can you, ungrateful man, resign your pleasant trifles? Tell me, what better thing when idle will you do? Wish you to adapt your comic shoe to the tragic buskin, or in even-footed measures to thunder of rough wars, that a pompous pedagogue may dictate you in hoarse tones, and tall girl and honest boy hate you? Let those themes be written by men grave overmuch, and overmuch austere, whom at midnight their lamp marks at their wretched toil. But do you dip your little Roman books in sprightly wit; let Life recognize and read of her own manners. To a thin pipe you may appear to sing, if only your pipe outblow the trump of many."