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What is an epigram? a dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Acon his right, Leonilla her left eye Doth want; yet each in form, the gods out-vie. Sweet boy, with thine, thy sister's sight improved: So shall she Venus be, thou God of Love.

The diamond's virtues well might grace The epigram, and both excel In brilliancy in smallest space, And power to cut as well.

This picture, plac'd the busts between Gives Satire all its strength; Wisdom and Wit are little seen While Folly glares at length.

Unlike my subject, I will make my song. It shall be witty, and it shan't be long.

You complain, Velox, that the epigrams which I write are long. You yourself write nothing; your attempts are shorter.

Report says that you, Fidentinus, recite my compositions in public as if they were your own. If you allow them to be called mine, I will send you my verses gratis; if you wish them to be called yours, pray buy them, that they may be mine no longer.

The book which you are reading aloud is mine, Fidentinus; but, while you read it so badly, it begins to be yours.

You are pretty,--we know it; and young,--it is true; and rich,-- who can deny it? But when you praise yourself extravagantly, Fabulla, you appear neither rich, nor pretty, nor young.

"You are too free spoken," is your constant remark to me, Choerilus. He who speaks against you, Choerilus, is indeed a free speaker.

What's this that myrrh doth still smell in thy kiss, And that with thee no other odour is? 'Tis doubt, my Postumus, he that doth smell So sweetly always, smells not very well.

Since your legs, Phoebus, resemble the horns of the moon, you might bathe your feet in a cornucopia.

In whatever place you meet me, Postumus, you cry out immediately, and your very first words are, "How do you do?" You say this, even if you meet me ten times in one single hour: you, Postumus, have nothing, I suppose, to do.

If you wish, Faustinus, a bath of boiling water to be reduced in temperature,--a bath, such as scarcely Julianus could enter,--ask the rhetorician Sabinaeus to bathe himself in it. He would freeze the warm baths of Nero.

I could do without your face, and your neck, and your hands, and your limbs, and your bosom, and other of your charms. Indeed, not to fatigue myself with enumerating each of them, I could do without you, Chloe, altogether.

Lycoris has buried all the female friends she had, Fabianus: would she were the friend of my wife!

You were constantly, Matho, a guest at my villa at Tivoli. Now you buy it--I have deceived you; I have merely sold you what was already your own.

Do you wonder for what reason, Theodorus, notwithstanding your frequent requests and importunities, I have never presented you with my works? I have an excellent reason; it is lest you should present me with yours.

You put fine dishes on your table, Olus, but you always put them on covered. This is ridiculous; in the same way I could put fine dished on my table.

And have you been able, Flaccus, to see the slender Thais? Then, Flaccus, I suspect you can see what is invisible.