ns and still do lie
Sleepless! and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night and two nights more I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth;
So do not let me wear to-night away:
Without thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

IX. MARTIAL.

43-104 A.D.

He was a man of genius, of quick intelligence and vivacity, with a great
deal of wit and pungency in his writings, and at the same time great
candour.--Pliny, _Epistula_ 3. 21 (Sellar's translation).

Martial was born at Bilbilis in Spain. At twenty-three years of age he
came to Rome, where he resided for thirty-five years in limited
circumstances, returning to his birthplace three years before his death.
He composed fourteen books of Epigrams.

As a man he was social and popular. As a writer he was eminently sincere
(except when playing the courtier), natural, and witty. He had no equal
among the poets of his time as a lifelike painter of the actual world of
his day.

For Reference: Sellar and Ramsay, _Extracts from Martial_ (Edinburgh,
1884), Introduction; Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, _History of Roman
Literature_, vol. 2, p. 121 ff.; Friedlander, _Martialis Epigrammaton
Libri_ (Leipzig, 1886); Paley and Stone, _Select Epigrams from Martial_
(London, 1881).

Metres: Choliambic, A. & G. 618, a, b, c. _Selections_ 4, 12.
Phalaecian, A. & G. 623, 624,625. 11: _Selections_ 1, 5, 7, 11. Elegiac,
B. 369, 1, 2; A. & G. 616: _Selections_ 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 13.

_1._ 5. tu: the attorney who is conducting Martial's case. 6. periuria
ff.: to a Roman the name of Carthaginian (_Punicus_) was a synonym for
treachery. 7. Muciosque: Mucius, when captured in an attempt to
assassinate King Porsena, showed his insensibility to threats by
voluntarily holding his hand in the flame of an altar. Livy, 2. 12. The
plurals in this line may be rendered by _Sullas, Mariuses_, etc.

_4._ Bassus is met at various points on the Appian Way farther and
farther out from Rome. 1. pluit: because of the leaky aqueduct above. 2.
Phrygium...ferrum: the priests of Cybele washed their knives in the
Almo, a branch of the Tiber near Kome. 3. Horatiorum...campus: the
traditional scene of the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii. 4.
pusilli: the statue is small. fervet: is alive with