Tantum dat tibi Roma basiorum
Post annos modo quindecim reverso,
Quantum Lesbia non dedit Catullo.
Te vicinia tota, te pilosus
Hircoso premit osculo colonus.
Hinc instat tibi textor, inde fullo,
Hinc sutor modo pelle basiata,
Hinc _menti dominus periculosi_,
Hinc defioculusque et inde lippus,
Fellatorque recensque cunnilingus.
Iam tanti tibi non fuit redire.
(_Of pestilent Kissers_: Rome bestows more kisses on you, on your
return to her after fifteen years’ absence, than ever Lesbia gave
Catullus. The whole neighbourhood kisses you, and the hirsute
countryman presses you in his goaty embrace. One side the weaver is
upon you, the other the fuller, here the cobbler who but now kissed his
leather; here comes _the owner of a perilous chin_, here the one-eyed
man and here the blear, and the _fellator_, and the _cunnilingue_
fresh from work. Now surely to return was not of such importance to you
as all this.)
_Book XI. Epigram 98:_