Читать книгу Yale Classics - Roman Classical Literature - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 71

XXI.

Sire and prince-patriarch of hungry starvelings,

Lean Aurelius, all that are, that have been,

That shall ever in after years be famish'd;

Wouldst thou lewdly my dainty love to folly

Tempt, and visibly? thou be near, be joking

Cling and fondle, a hundred arts redouble?

O presume not: a wily wit defeated

Pays in scandalous incapacitation.

Yet didst folly to fulness add, 'twere all one;

Now shall beauty to thirst be train'd or hunger's

Grim necessity; this is all my sorrow.

Then hold, wanton, upon the verge; to-morrow

Comes preposterous incapacitation.