If you ask now: ‘What’s your point in all this? Well,
In avoiding one vice a fool rushes into its opposite.
Maltinus ambles around with his tunic hanging down:
Another, a dandy, hoists his obscenely up to his crotch.
Rufillus smells of lozenges, and Gargonius of goat.
There’s no happy medium. Some will only touch women
Whose ankles are hidden beneath a wife’s flounces:
Another only those who frequent stinking brothels.
Seeing someone he knew exit from one, Cato’s
Noble words were: ‘A blessing on all your doings, since
It’s fine when shameful lust swells youngsters’ veins
For them to wander down here, and not mess around
With other men’s wives.’ ‘I’d hate to be praised for that,’
Says Cupiennius though, an admirer of white-robed snatch.
If you wish bad luck on adulterers, it’s worth your while
To listen how they struggle in every direction,
And how their pleasure is marred by plenty of pain,
And how in the midst of cruel dangers it’s rarely won.
One man leaps from a roof: another, flogged, is hurt
To the point of death: another in flight falls in with
A gang of fierce robbers: a fourth pays gold for his life,
A fifth’s done over by lads, it’s even happened
That a husband with a sword’s reaped the lover’s
Lusty cock and balls. ‘Legal’ all cried: Galba dissenting.