Persius

“ It was that master of the arts, that dispenser of genius, the Belly, who has a rare skill in getting at words which are not his own. ”

“ I never soused my lips in the Nag's Spring; [1] never, that I can remember, did I dream on the two-topped Parnasus, that I should thus come forth suddenly as a poet. The maidens [2] of Mount Helicon, and the blanching waters of Pirene, [3] I give up to the gentlemen round whose busts the clinging ivy [4] twines; it is but as a half-member [5] of the community that I bring my lay to the holy feast of the bards. Who made it so easy for the parrot to chirp his "good morrow"? [6] Who taught the magpie to ape the language of man? ”