Si duo dicunt idem, non est idem

Declamas in febre, Maron: hanc esse phrenesin si nescis, non es sanus, amice Maron. Declamas aeger, declamas hemitritaeos: si sudare aliter non potes, est ratio. “Magna tamen res est”. Erras; cum viscera febris exurit, res est magna tacere, Maron. You declaim in a fever, Maron; If you don’t know that this is frenzy, You are not sane, friend Maron. You declaim when you are ill,  You declaim in a semitertian: If otherwise you can’t perspire, There is some reason in it. “Yet it is a great thing”. You are wrong; when fever burns up your vitals ’Tis a great thing to hold your tongue, Maron.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 4, LXXX
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Johan Swanepoel, Girl With Umbrella And Falling Feathers, 2015. Photo © Johan Swanepoel/Fine Art America.