Marcus Valerius Martialis, Epigrammaton libri XII, LI:
>Versus et breve vividumque carmen
>In te ne faciam, times, Ligurra,
>Et dignus cupis hoc metu videri.
>Sed frustra metuis cupisque frustra.
>In tauros Libyci ruunt leones,
>Non sunt papilionibus molesti.
>Quaeras, censeo, si legi laboras,
>Nigri fornicis ebrium poetam,
>Qui carbone rudi putrique creta
>Scribit carmina, quae legunt cacantes.
>Frons haec stigmate non meo notanda est.
English:
>You say you’re scared I’m going to aim
>A lampoon at you, something brief
>And lurid, and half proudly claim
>You’re a marked man. Wishful belief!
>Misapprehended apprehension!
>African lions pay attention
>To bulls, they don’t hunt butterflies.
>Ligurra, since you’ve such a hunger
>For public notice, I advise
>Hiring some sozzled ballad-monger
>In a smoke-blackened dive who scrawls
>Graffiti over lavatory walls
>With stubs of mouldy chalk or coal.
>I wouldn’t touch you with a pole.