If you want to write what’s worth a second reading,
You must often reverse your stylus, and smooth the wax:
Don’t write to amaze the crowd, be content with the few.
Are you mad enough to want your poems mouthed in school?
Not I: as proud Arbuscula said when they hissed her act,
‘It’s fine so long as the knights applaud’: she scorned the rest.
Should I bother about that louse Pantilius, should I
Be tortured by Demetrius’ sneers behind my back,
Or that fool Fannius’ attack, Hermogenes’ sponge?
Only let Plotius commend me, and Varius
Maecenas, Virgil, Valgius, and the best of men
Octavius, Fuscus: let the Viscus brothers praise!
And I can name you Pollio, without flattery,
And you, and your brother, Messalla, and you,
Bibulus, Servius, and you my honest Furnius,
And many another learned friend, I’m aware
I omit: and I’d like these verses, such as they are,
To please them, grieved if they delight them less than I
Hope. But you Demetrius, you Tigellius, go carp
Among the armchairs of those female disciples!
Go boy, quickly, add these lines to my little book.