Whenever anyone deserved to be shown as a crook A thief, a libertine, a murderer, or merely notorious In some other way, the true poets, those who powered The Old Comedy: Eupolis, Aristophanes, Cratinus, used to mark such a man out quite freely. Lucilius derives from them, as a follower Who only changed rhythm and metre: witty With a sharp nose, true, but the verse he wrote was rough. That's where the fault lay: often, epically, he'd dictate Two hundred lines, do it standing on one foot even! A lot should have been dredged from his murky stream. He was garrulous, hated the labour involved in writing, Writing well, I mean: I don't care for mere quantity. Watch Crispinus offer me long odds: ‘Now, if you please, Take your tablets and I'll take mine: pick a time, a place, The judges: let's see which of us can scribble the most.' Thank the gods I'm a man of few ideas, with no spirit, One who speaks only rarely, and then says little. But if it's what you prefer, then you imitate air shut In a goat-skin bellows, labouring away till the fire Makes the iron melt. Blessed be Fannius who offers His books and a bust unasked, while no one reads What I write, and I'm afraid to recite it aloud Since some care little for that sort of thing, and most Men deserve censure. Choose any man from the crowd: He'll be bothered by avarice or some wretched ambition.