Brown Blephargo a biga drives at an Olympic speed,
’Tween vineyard walls and olive-groves, where the poor lepers feed,
And grins with horse-teeth, white and large, at every one he meets,
Racing back home at Cœna-time through the snow-sprinkled streets.
Sly Lycus to the theatre goes in senatorial gown,
And Paradisca by him sits, so fat and oily brown,
Stares at the tragic actor’s mask and mocks at Ino’s grief,
And coughs and yawns, or bites the string that ties his garland leaf.
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Smart Hanno with Falernian wine at citron table sits,
His miser master standing there, he mocks at and he twits.
Calling for tongues of nightingales and peacocks’ costly brains,
Or singing songs of piebald Greek to wanton Syrian strains.
And all the time that miser old kneels drudging at the fire,
Or sweeps the floor with palm-tree brooms, praying to heaven’s great sire,
To send to-morrow sooner, with scourges and the tree,
For that beast-slave, already drunk with his short liberty.
