Short is the life of those who possess great accomplishments, and seldom do they reach a good old age. Whatever thou lovest, pray that thou mayest not set too high a value on it.
Believing hear, what you deserve to hear: Your birthday as my own to me is dear. But yours gives most; for mine did only lend Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.
If I remember right, Aelia, you had four teeth; a cough displaced two, another two more. You can now cough without anxiety all the day long. A third cough can find nothing to do in your mouth.
I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged.
He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them?
