From Catullus, the Roman John Cooper Clarke, on owning a nice house.
The Mortgage: to Furius
Furius, your little villa’s not exposed
to the southerlies, or the westerlies,
the savage north-wind, or the easterly breeze,
but truly to fifteen thousand two hundred cash.
O terrifying and destructive wind!
If Catullus didn't like someone, he told them.
A Suggestion: to Vibennius
O first of the bath-house thieves
Vibennius the father, with sodomite son
(since the father’s right hand is dirtier,
and the son’s arse more all-consuming),
why not go into exile, to some vile place?
Seeing the father’s pillage is known
to us all, and the son’s hairy arse,
you can’t sell for a farthing.
Free for All: to the Regulars and Egnatius
Lecherous tavern, and you its regulars,
nine pillars along from the
Twins’ pillars,
do you think you’re the only ones with cocks,
the only ones who’re allowed to trouble
young girls, and consider the rest of us goats?
Or, because a hundred or two of you sit in a row, you,
dullards, that I daren’t b****r two hundred together?
Think on: I’ll draw all over the front
of the tavern with your leavings.
Because my girl, who’s left my arms,
whom I loved as no other girl’s ever been loved,
for whom so many great battles were fought,
is there. You, all the rich and the fortunate, love her,
and, what’s so shameful, it’s true, all the lesser ones,
all the adulterous frequenters of by-ways:
you, above all, one of the hairy ones,
rabbit-faced offspring of Spain,
Egnatius. Whom a shadowy beard improves,
and teeth scrubbed with Iberian p***.