Reflexology

Litigat et podagra Diodorus, Flacce, laborat. Sed nil patrono porrigit: haec cheragra est. Diodorus goes to law, and suffers, Flaccus, from gout in the feet. But he offers his advocate no fee: this is gout in the hand.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 1, XCVIII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Bangkok, Thailand: A Sumatran orangutan, which was smuggled into the country, accepts a banana at Suvarnabhumi Airport before being repatriated to Indonesia. Photo: Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images.

Twice Upon a Time

Saepius ad palmam Prasinus post fata Neronis pervenit et victor praemia plura refert. I nunc, livor edax, die te cessisse Neroni; vicit nimirum non Nero, sed Prasinus. Oftener after Nero’s death the green charioteer reaches the goal, And as winner bears off more prizes. Go to now, grudging envy, say you yielded to Nero. ’Twas not Nero, I wot, who won, but the Green.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 11, XXXIII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Duane Michals, Dr. Heisenberg’s Magic Mirror of Uncertainty, 1998. Shot for French Vogue. Photo: Duane Michals/Courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York.

Multi-booting

Clinicus Herodes trullam subduxerat aegro: deprensus dixit “Stulte, quid ergo bibis?” Doctor Herodes had stolen a drinking-ladle from a sick patient. When detected he said: “You fool, why then do you drink?” Avea rubata una tazza il medico Erode a un malato. Sorpreso, disse: “Sciocco, volevi dunque bere?”

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

Closing Ceremony, No. 2. Photo collage © Same Paper.

No Kiss Goodbye

Qui pinxit Venerem tuam, Lycori, blanditus, puto, pictor est Minervae. He who painted this Venus of yours, Lycoris, Was a painter, I think, who paid court to Minerva.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 1, CII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Martiros Saryan, Love, 1906. Courtesy of WikiArt.

The Visible and the Invisible

Hostem cum fugeret, se Fannius ipse peremit. Hic, rogo, non furor est, ne moriare, mori? Because he was flying from an enemy, Fannius slew himself. Is not this, I ask, madness — to die to avoid death?

Martial, Epigrams, Book 2, LXXX
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

A visitor takes a picture of The Rape of Europa, part of Titian’s series of large scale Greek mythological paintings called “poesie” (“poetry”) that feature in the Titian: Love, Desire, Death exhibition, at the National Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Photo: PA.

The Hand of Grace

Basia das aliis, aliis das, Postume, dextram. Dicis “Utrum mavis? Elige”. Malo manum. Kisses you give to some; to others you give, Postumus, your hand. You say, “Which do you prefer? Choose”. I prefer the hand.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 2, XXI
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Gustav Klimt, Der Kuß (The Kiss), 1907–1908. Courtesy of Google Art Project.

What yes and what not

Nescio tam multis quid scribas, Fauste, puellis: hoc scio, quod scribit nulla puella tibi. I don’t know what you write, Faustus, to so many girls: This I know, what no girl writes to you.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 11, LXIV
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

An iguana shows its claw at the reptile sanctuary and zoo in Rheinberg, Germany. Photo: Martin Meissner/AP.

Couple Therapy

Ancillariolum tua te vocat uxor, et ipsa Lecticariola est: estis, Alauda, pares. Your wife calls you an admirer of servant maids, And she herself is an admirer of litter-bearers. You are a pair, Alauda.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 12, LVIII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Filippo Lippi, Ritratto di donna con un uomo al davanzale (Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement), ca. 1440. Courtesy of The Met, New York.

Why the Cuckoo Cries

Edita ne brevibus pereat mihi cura libellis, dicatur potius Τὸν δ̕ ἀπαμειθόμενος. For fear my fount of poetry run dry “Him answering” is still my cuckoo-cry.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 1, XLV
English translation by A. L. Francis and H. F. Tatum

South Korean makeup artist Dain Yoon (윤다인) argues that even the veil of the heart does not make love blind. Photo: Dain Yoon (@designdain).

Beatus Paulus

Facere in Lyciscam, Paule, me iubes versus, quibus illa lectis rubeat et sitirata. O Paule, malus es: irrumare vis solus. You bid me, Paulus, write against Lycisca verses At which she would blush and be enraged. O, Paulus, you are a rogue! You want to keep her to yourself!

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

Ballet dancer Ekaterina Valentinovna Shipulina performs during a celebration for the 90th birthday of Soviet and Russian composer Aleksandra Nikolayevna Pakhmutova at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Photo: Ilya Pitalev/Sputnik.

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.

The more you look, the less you want to see

Si solum spectes hominis caput, Hectora credas: si stan tem videas, Astyanacta putes. If you regard the man’s head alone You would believe him Hector; If you saw him standing You would deem him Astyanax.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 9, CCXII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

常玉 (Cháng Yù), Reclining Nude, 1931. Credit: WikiArt.

Nemesis of an Ego

Ussit amatorem Nemesis lasciva Tibullum, in tota iuvit quem nihil esse domo. Sensual Nemesis so fired Tibullus’ flame That even his slaves scarce knew his name.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 14, CXCIII
English translation by John Patrick Sullivan

Alexandra Levasseur, Hommage à Odilon IV, Oil on wood, 2014. Courtesy of Galerie C.O.A., Montreal.

The Unexpected Honeymoon

Comoedi tres sunt, sed amat tua Paula, Luperce, quattuor: et κωφὸν Paula πρόσωπον amat. There are three actors in Comedy, But your Paula, Lupercus, loves four. Paula loves a “walker-on” as well.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 6, VI
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

South Korean makeup artist Dain Yoon (윤다인)’s number of extra hands (and nails) does not necessarily depend upon wishes or circumstances. Photo: Dain Yoon (@designdain).

Coup de foudre

Ingenium studiumque tibi moresque genusque sunt equitis, fateor: cetera plebis habes. Bis septena tibi non sint subsellia tanti, ut sedeas viso pallidus Oceano. The wit, and the taste, and the manners, And the birth that fit a knight are yours, I grant: The rest is plebeian. A place in the fourteen rows Should not seem to you worth having If you have to turn pale in your seat At the sight of Oceanus.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 5, XXVII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Michael Heizer, Levitated Mass, 2012. Photo courtesy of Frederic J. Brown/AFP/GettyImages.

Remedia amoris

Dum modo causidicum, dum te modo rhetora fingis et non decernis, Laure, quid esse velis, Peleos et Priami transit et Nestoris aetas et fuerat serum iam tibi desinere. Incipe, tres uno perierunt rhetores anno, si quid habes animi, si quid in arte vales, si schola damnatur, fora litibus omnia fervent, ipse potest fieri Marsua causidicus. Heia age, rumpe moras: quo te sperabimus usque? Dum quid sis dubitas, iam potes esse nihil. While you are shaping yourself, Now into a pleader, now into a teacher of rhetoric, And don’t decide, Taurus, what you want to be,  The age of Peleus and of Priam and of Nestor has passed, And by now ’twere late for you even to be retiring. Begin — three rhetoricians have died in a single year —  If you have any spirit, if any proficiency in your calling. If your vote is against the schools, All the courts are alive with suits: Even Marsyas himself may turn into a pleader. Up, then! Put off delay; How long shall we be waiting for you? While you cannot resolve what you are, At last you may be nothing.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 2, LXIV
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

An apparent just-married couple take rest and photographs under the shadow of a tree at Hyde Park in London, England, United Kingdom. Photo: Reuters/Peter Nicholls.

Never Alone

Hermes Martia saeculi voluptas, Hermes omnibus eruditus armis, Hermes et gladiator et magister, Hermes turbo sui tremorque ludi, Hermes, quem timet Helius, sed unum, Hermes, cui cadit Advolans, sed uni, Hermes vincere nec ferire doctus, Hermes subpositicius sibi ipse, Hermes divitiae locariorum, Hermes cura laborque ludiarum, Hermes belligera superbus hasta, Hermes aequoreo minax tridente, Hermes casside languida timendus, Hermes gloria Martis universi, Hermes omnia solus et ter unus. Hermes, the age’s delight to the Sons of Mars; Hermes, schooled in all weapons; Hermes, gladiator and trainer both; Hermes, the confusion and terror of his own school; Hermes, whom, but whom alone, Helius fears; Hermes, whom, but whom alone, Advolans goes down before; Hermes, skilled to vanquish without slaying; Hermes, himself his own substitute; Hermes, fount of wealth to seat-contractors; Hermes, the darling and passion of gladiators’ women; Hermes, proud with the warrior’s spear; Hermes, threatful with the sea-trident; Hermes, terrible in the drooping casque; Hermes, the pride of Mars in every shape; Hermes is all things in his single self, and trebly one.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 5, XXIV
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Gérard de Lairesse, Hermes Ordering Calypso to Release Odysseus, 1665. Courtesy of Cleveland Museum of Art.

Because the Night

Casta nec antiquis cedens Laevina Sabinis et quamvis tetrico tristior ipsa viro dum modo Lucrino, modo se permittit Averno, et dum Baianis saepe fovetur aquis, incidit in flammas: iuvenemque secuta relicto coniuge Penelope venit, abit Helene. Chaste, and not inferior to the old-world Sabines, Straiter-laced, too, than her husband in his sternest mood, Laevina, while she entrusted herself, Now to the Lucrine lake and now to Avernus, And was oft refreshed by the waters of Baiae, Fell into flames. She went after a youth, leaving a husband: She arrived a Penelope and departed a Helen!

Martial, Epigrams, Book 1, LXII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Felicem fieri credis me, Zoile, cena? Felicem cena, Zoile, deinde tua? Debet Aricino conviva recumbere clivo, quem tua felicem, Zoile, cena facit. D’ye think I am made happy, Zoilus, by a dinner? Happy by a dinner, Zoilus, and — above all — by yours? That guest should lie at his meals on Aricia’s slope Whom your dinner, Zoilus, makes happy.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 2, XIX
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

A visitor photographs an artwork by Chinese artist 劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín), whose solo exhibitionon “Visible Invisible” is on display at the Museum of Cultures (Mudec) in Milan, Italy until September 15, 2019. Photo: AFP.

Chains of Love

Has cum gemina compede dedicat catenas, Saturne, tibi Zoilus, anulos priores. These chains with their double fetter Zoilus dedicates to you, Saturnus. They were formerly his rings.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 3, XXIX
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín), Hiding in the City, Paris – Love, 2014. Courtesy of 劉勃麟 (Liu Bolin)/Galerie Paris–北京 (Běijīng), Paris/Collection Guerlain.