In the Forum as I was idly roaming
Varus took me a merry dame to visit.
She a lady, methought upon the moment,
Of some quality, not without refinement.
1.
So, arrived, in a trice we fell on endless 5
Themes colloquial; how the fact, the falsehood
With Bithynia, what the case about it,
Had it helped me to profit or to money.
Then I told her a very truth; no atom
There for company, praetor, hungry natives, 10
Home might render a body aught the fatter:
Then our praetor a castaway, could hugely
Mulct his company, had a taste to jeer them.
2.
Spoke another, 'Yet anyways, to bear you
Men were ready, enough to grace a litter. 15
They grow quantities, if report belies not.'
Then supremely myself to flaunt before her,
I 'So thoroughly could not angry fortune
Spite, I might not, afflicted in my province,
Get erected a lusty eight to bear me. 20
But so scrubby the poor sedan, the batter'd
Frame-work, nobody there nor here could ever
Lift it, painfully neck to nick adjusting.'
3.
Quoth the lady, belike a lady wanton,
'Just for courtesy, lend me, dear Catullus, 25
Those same nobodies. I the great Sarapis
Go to visit awhile.' Said I in answer,
'Thanks; but, lady, for all my easy boasting,
'Twas too summary; there's a friend who knows me,
Cinna Gaius, his the sturdy bearers. 30
'Mine or Cinna's, an inch alone divides us,
I use Cinna's, as e'en my own possession.
But you're really a bore, a very tiresome
Dame unmannerly, thus to take me napping.'