Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) - 1.5.1. lyrics

Leaving great Rome for Aricia, a modest inn Received me: the rhetorician Heliodorus Was with me, most learned of Greeks: to Forum Appi, Then, crammed with bargemen and stingy innkeepers. We Took this lazily in two days, though keener travellers Than us take only one: the Appian's easier taken slow! Here because of the lousy water my stomach declares War on me, and I wait impatiently while the others Dine. Night's already beginning to shroud the earth In shadow, and sprinkle the heavens with stars. Then its slaves shouting at bargemen, bargees at slaves: ‘Pull, over here!' ‘You're loading three hundred?' ‘Oy, That's enough!' A whole hour slips by, as they harness The mule, and collect the fares. The marsh frogs and damned Mosquitoes keep away sleep, while the boatman, drowned In sour wine, sings of the girl left behind and a traveller Joins in. At last the traveller tires and falls asleep, And the lazy boatman turns out his mule to feed, Ties the rope to a stone, and snores away on his back. When day dawns we discover our vessel's not yet Under way, till a hot-headed traveller leaps out thumping mule and man head and sides with a branch Of willow. At ten we are barely landed at last And wash our faces and hands in Feronia's stream.. Then after breakfast we crawl on three miles to Anxur. Perched on its cliffs that gleam brightly far and wide. Here Maecenas the best of men's going to meet us, An envoy, with Cocceius, on very important business, Both of them used to settling feuds between friends. Here I smear some black ointment on my sore eyes. Meanwhile Maecenas arrives, and with him Cocceius And Fonteius Capito, a man so perfectly finished That Antony owns to no greater friend than he.