From Being to Becoming

Dentibus antiquas solitus producere pelles et mordere luto putre vetusque solum, Praenestina tenes decepti regna patroni, in quibus indignor si tibi cella fuit; rumpis et ardenti madidus crystalla Falerno, et pruris domini cum Ganymede tui. At me litterulas stulti docuere parentes: quid cum grammaticis rhetoribusque mihi? Frange leves calamos et scinde, Thalia, libellos, si dare sutori calceus ista potest. Wont with your teeth to stretch out ancient hides, And to gnaw a shoesole rotten with mud and worn out, You possess the Praenestan fields of your dead patron, In which I think it shame if you ever had a garret; And drunk, you fill to bursting your crystal with hot Falernian, And lewdly trifle with the cupbearer of your master. But me foolish parents taught paltry letters: What is the use of teachers of grammar and rhetoric to me? Break your worthless pens, Thalia, and tear up your books, If a shoe can give a cobbler a gift like that. Tu che solevi tirare le cuoia vetuste coi denti, e mordere le suole vecchie e sporche di fango, ora tieni i poderi del truffato padrone a Preneste, dov’anche una capanna era di troppo per te; e sborniato di ardente Falerno fracassi le coppe, e per il Ganimede del tuo padrone hai prurito. E a me, sciocchi, insegnarono i miei genitori le lettere! Ah, che farmene mai di grammatici e retori? Rompi la penna leggera, e straccia, o Talia, i libretti, se a un ciabattino può tanto donare una scarpa.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 9, LXXIII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker
Italian translation by Giuseppe Lipparini

Indian rescue workers and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel perform a search and rescue operation after a segment of the Majerhat Bridge collapsed in Kolkata, India. Photo: AFP/Dibyangshu Sarkarcasa.