Horace

“ A merchant fearing the African wind
wrestling the Icarian sea praises leisure and
the fields of his own town; soon he repairs the battered
ships, not taught to suffer poverty.
There is he who spurns taking away neither the the cup of old Massic wine
nor the parts of a whole day
now stretching out his limbs under a green tree,
now by the gentle head of a sacred stream. ”

“ Maecenas, risen from royal ancestors,
oh, my guardian and my sweet glory,
there are those who it pleases to produce Olympic dust in a
chariot having avoided the turning post
with fiery wheels, and the noble palm
carries them, like masters of the world, to the gods.
It pleases this man, if a crowd of fickle citizens
elect to lift (him) up with triple offices;
it pleases that one, if he stores up in his own granary
whatever is culled from the Libyan threshing floor. ”