A Treasure Revealed

Languebam: sed tu comitatus protinus ad me venisti centum, Symmache, discipulis. Centum me tetigere manus aquilone gelatae: non habui febrem, Symmache, nunc habeo. A slight cold or a touch of flu, but when THE SPECIALIST and all his crew of a 100 students once are through, and every inch of me’s been handled twice by a hundred medics’ hands as cold as ice, the pneumonia I didn’t have I DO! Ero malato; ma tu, seguito da cento scolari, senza indugio venisti a visitarmi, o Simmaco. Ben cento mani, gelate dall’Aquilone, mi toccano: non avevo la febbre, Simmaco, ed ora l’ho.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 5, IX
English translation by Tony Harrison
Italian translation by Giuseppe Lipparini