Martial Quotations

Marcus Valerius Martialis was born sometime around 40 A.D. at Bilbilis, a small town in the north-east of Spain (Hispania). He is commonly known in the English speaking world as Martial. He was a scathing satirist, often writing highly derogatory poems of his acquaintances - including his patrons - which he published under the title of Epigrammata. Though not the first Roman poet to write in an epigrammatic style he is widely considered to have brought the epigram to its acme as a literary genre; thus he is rightly considered the 'Father of the Epigram.'

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Epigrams

Epigrammata, twelve books of short poems.

Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.
- My poems are naughty, but my life is pure. - Liber I, iv.

Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.
- Translation: Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today.
- I, 15

Stop abusing my verses, or publish some of your own.
- I, 91

You complain, friend Swift, of the length of my epigrams, but you yourself write nothing. Yours are shorter.
- I, 110

Invitas nullum nisi cum quo, Cotta, lavaris
et dant convivam balnea sola tibi
mirabar quare numquam me, Cotta, vocasses:
iam scio me nudum displicuisse tibi.
- Translation: You invite no one except (someone) with whom you are bathed, Cotta
  And only baths provide guest(s) for you.
  I was wondering why you had never called me, Cotta:
  Now I know that nude me was displeasing to you.
- I, 23

I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee.
- I, 32, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare "I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this alone I know full well, I do not love thee, Doctor Fell", Tom Brown, Laconics.

Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.
- III, 42

The bee enclosed and through the amber shown
Seems buried in the juice which was his own.
- IV, 32, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare "Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb", Francis Bacon,Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. experiment 100.

You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't say no.
- IV, 71

Nullos esse deos, inane caelum
Adfirmat Segius: probatque, quod se
Factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum.
- Selius affirms, in heav'n no gods there are: And while he thrives, and they their thunder spare, His daring tenet to the world seems fair. -Anon, 1695
- Liber IV, xxi

Si post fata venit gloria, non propero.
- If glory comes after death, I hurry not. - Liber V, x; (Trans. Zachariah Rush)

Nobis pereunt et imputantur.
- Translation: They [the hours] pass by, and are put to our account.
- V, 20, line 13
- This phrase is often found as an inscription on sundials.

A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere.
- V, 73

Laudas balnea versibus trecentis
Cenantis bene Pontici, Sabelle.
Vis cenare, Sabelle, non lavari.
- Translation: You praise, in 300 verses, Sabellus, the baths of Ponticus, who gives such excellent dinners. You wish to dine, Sabellus, not to be bathed.
- IX, 19

Virtue extends our days: he lives two lives who relives his past with pleasure.
- X, 23. Alternatively translated as "The good man prolongs his life; to be able to enjoy one’s past life is to live twice", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare "For he lives twice who can at once employ / The present well, and e'en the past enjoy", Alexander Pope, Imitation of Martial.

Neither fear your death's day nor long for it.
- X, 47. Alternatively translated as "Neither fear, nor wish for, your last day", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare "Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st / Live well: how long or short permit to heaven", John Milton, Paradise Lost, book xi, line 553.

Difficilis facilis iucundus acerbus es idem:
Nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te.
- Translation: Difficult easy-going, likewise you are sweet [and] sour: I am able to live neither with you nor without you.
- XII, 47