Followers of Piso, empty band
With your light budgets packt to hand,
Veránius best! Fabúllus mine!
What do ye? Bore ye enough, in fine
Of frost and famine with yon sot? 5
What loss or gain have haply got
Your tablets? so, whenas I ranged
With Praetor, gains for loss were changed.
"O Memmius! thou did'st long and late
---- me supine slow and ----" 10
But (truly see I) in such case
Diddled you were by wight as base
Sans mercy. Noble friends go claim!
Now god and goddess give you grame
Disgrace of Romulus! Remus' shame! 15
Piso's Company, a starveling band, with lightweight knapsacks, scantly
packed, most dear Veranius thou, and my Fabullus eke, how fortunes it with
you? have ye borne frost and famine enow with that sot? Which in your
tablets appear--the profits or expenses? So with me, who when I followed a
praetor, inscribed more gifts than gains. "O Memmius, well and slowly didst
thou irrumate me, supine, day by day, with the whole of that beam." But,
from what I see, in like case ye have been; for ye have been crammed with
no smaller a poker. Courting friends of high rank! But may the gods and
goddesses heap ill upon ye, reproach to Romulus and Remus.