Ovid

“ Perish with time, poetry is without death:
Let kings and the triumphs of kings yield to poetry,
Let the bountiful banks of gold-bearing Tagus yield.
Let the common people admire common things; to me may golden-haired Apollo
Serve cups filled with Castalian water,
And may I wear myrtle on my hair that fears the frost
And be much read by anxious lovers.
Envy feasts on the living; after death it is silent,
When each man’s fame protects him as he deserves:
So, even when the final flame has consumed me,
I shall live, and a considerable part of me will survive. ”

“ What you ask of me are mortal things; my occupation is seeking everlasting fame for myself,
So that always I may be celebrated in poetry in the whole world.
Maeonia’s son will live, while Tenedos and Ida stand,
While Simois rolls its swift waters to the sea;
The poet from Ascra will live too, while the unfermented grapes swell,
While the Corn cut back by the curved sickle falls;
The son of Battus always will be celebrated in poetry in the whole world:
Though he is not worthy in talent, he is worthy in art ”

“ carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti,
exitio terras cum dabit una dies; ”