foolsguinea's pages of quotes:

Poems from Peter Porter's book After Martial:
These are modernisations, in English, of poems by the ancient Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martial.  Some of Porter's modernisations are wackily anachronistic; some are quite changed from the original.  I like them enough to put three of them here; if you like these, I recommend the book.
All poems copyright Peter Porter, who may end up sending me a nasty letter for using them without permission—in which case I'll replace them with the translations by Dudley Fitts, & then he'll be sorry, yuh-huh.
The number after each poem indicates the book and number of the original poem by Martial.

 
Twice thirty million sesterces spent
In the service of his famous stomach
Apicius followed where his money went
Under a wide and grassy hummock.

He'd counted his wealth and found there were
Ten million left.  Mere hunger and thirst!
Soon life would be more than he could bear
So he drank a beaker of poison first.

Romans are noble in everything—yes,
Even Apicius, the notorious glutton.
He died for his principles—to eat the best
And deny the very existence of mutton.

(after Martial III.xxii)

 
 
Small and select, the restaurant called The Mouthful
       Overlooks Caesar's tomb and you may view
The sacred domes with garlic on your breath.
      Wine and dine there if you've got the pull,
See and be seen, for even as you chew,
      The God Augustus welcomes you to death.

(after Martial II.lix)
  As you know, Regulus, men are pharasaical,
They're always whoring after the classical.
They read but never praise our living writers
(Though the classics hit them like St. Vitus).
For them the time's always out of joint
And the past, being past, can't disappoint.
How they claim they miss those shady halls
Of Pompey's; or despite the balls–
Up Catulus made of the restoration
Of Jupiter's temple for a grateful nation,
How the fogies praise it because it was done
Back sometime around the year One;
Remember what Rome read in Virgil's time,
Old Ennis and the primitive sublime;
Go further down in the collective past,
Who thought Homer was going to last
And in that fashionable sump, the theatre,
Who fancied Menander a world beater?
Recall, if you can without apoplexy,
The lifetime of Ovid, so smooth and sexy,
The greatest Roman stylist only read
By Corinna, his mistress, and then in bed.
Such Injustice!  but hang on a second,
Is that Fame, that creature that beckoned,
With slatted sides and a charnel breath
And a club badge saying Kiss Me Death?
Then wait a while, my books, I'll stay
Alive and unknown another day—
If I can't be famous till I'm dead
I'm in no great hurry to be read.

(after Martial V.x)

  

foolsguinea's other pages of quotes:
§ miscellaneous short quotes
§ e e cummings (poetry)
§ Harlan Ellison (quotes)
§ Daniel Quinn 1: excerpt from Providence
§ Daniel Quinn 2: various shorter passages
§ Sarah Byam (essays)

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