A Treasury of Hours

Milia viginti quondam me Galla poposcit et, fateor, magno non erat illa nimis. Annus abît: “Bis quina dabis sestertia” dixit. Poscere plus visa est quam prius illa mihi. Iam duo poscenti post sextum milia mensem mille dabam nummos. Noluit accipere. Transierant binae forsan trinaeve kalendae, Aureolos ultro quatuor ipsa petit. Non dedimus, centum jussit me mittere nummos: sed visa est nobis haec quoque summa gravis. Sportula nos iunxit quadrantibus arida centum; hanc voluit: puero diximus esse datam. lnferius numquid potuit descendere? fecit. Dat gratis, ultro dat mihi Galla: nego. Galla formerly demanded of me twenty thousand sesterces, And I allow she was not too dear. A year goes by: “You will give ten thousand?” she said; She appeared to me to be demanding more than before. Then after six months, when she demanded two thousand, I offered a thousand: she would not accept them. Two, or perhaps three kalends had passed, And voluntarily she herself asked for four gold pieces: I did not give them. She bade me send her a hundred sesterces, But this sum, too, seemed to me stiff. A starveling allowance of a hundred farthings allied me with a patron: This she wanted; I said I had given them to my slave. Could she come down to lower dephts? She achieved this. Galla offers me her favours for nothing, Offers of her own accord: I decline. Ventimila sesterzi un tempo per Galla io spesi, e, lo confesso, il prezzo esagerato non era. Passa un anno. Mi dice: “Oh, me ne darai diecimila”; più della prima volta mi sembrò che chiedesse. Sei mesi dopo, esigeva soltanto duemila sesterzi; gliene proposi mille: non li volle accettare. Eran passate due o forse tre altre Calende, quando venne ella a chiedermi quattro monete d’oro. Non gliele diedi. Allora m’invita per cento sesterzi; ma questa somma ancora mi sembrò troppo cara. Magra una sporta mi giunse: poteva valer cento soldi. La voleva; le dissi ch’era già del mio servo. Poteva ancor discendere più in basso? Ebbene, lo fece. Gratis si dona Galla e s’offre. E io dico di no.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 10, LXXV
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker
Italian translation by Giuseppe Lipparini

This red squirrel seems to be recreating Michelangelo’s painting of the Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as it reaches for a walnut in a park in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. Photo: Stanislav Duben/Solent News.