Ovid

“ Who would equip Phoebus distinguished with hair with a sharp
spear, while Mars was strumming the Aonian lyre?
You have great, and extremely powerful kingdoms, boy:
Why do you aspire, ambitious one, to a new duty? ”

“ I was preparing to tell about weapons and violent wars in serious
meter, with the subject being suitable for the meter.
The lower line was equal: Cupid is said to have
laughed and to have stolen away one foot.
‘Who gave you, o cruel boy, this of an authority over poetry?
We the holy poets are the crowd of the Muses, not yours.
What would happen, if Venus should seize the arms of golden Minerva,
if golden Minerva should fan the lighted torches? ”

“ I am on fire, and Love reigns in my once empty chest.
Let my work rise in six feet, and fall again in five.
Farewell iron wars, with your meter.
Garland your golden brow with myrtle from the sea-shore,
Muse, you must be measured through eleven feet.
arma gravī numerō violentaque bella parābam
ēdere, māteriā conveniente modis.
pār erat inferior versus; risisse Cupīdo
dīcitur atque ūnum surripuisse pedem.
“Quis tibi, saeve puer, dedit hōc in carmina iūris?
Pīeridum vātēs, nōn tua turba sumus.
Quid, sī praeripiat flāvae Venus arma Minervae,
ventilet accensas flāva Minerva faces? ”