'What is so hard as rock, or what can be softer than water?
Hard rocks nevertheless by water are worn away.'
Amatory inscriptions often have the form of a message or greeting to a loved one, as in this example: Victoria, vale, et ubique es, suaviter sternutes,—'Health to you, Victoria, and wherever you are may you sneeze sweetly,' that is, may good luck follow you. Often the greeting is more ardent, as that to Cestilia: Cestilia, regina Pompeianorum, anima dulcis, vale,—'Cestilia, queen of the Pompeians, sweet soul, greeting to you.'
Sometimes the lover avoided writing the lady's name: Pupa quae bella es, tibi me misit qui tuus est; vale,—'Maiden who are so beautiful, he who is yours sent me to you; good-by.' Now and then we find an inscription of this class that leaves an unfavorable impression. The following is repeated several times on the outside of a house in the first Region: Serenae sodales sal[utem],—'Greeting to Serena, from her companions!'
Spurned lovers also confided their woes to graffiti, sometimes adding an appeal to the obdurate one, as in this wretched couplet, which can scarcely have been taken from a poet; the play upon words in the last clause was apparently intentional: Si quid amor valeat nostei, sei te hominem scis, Commiseresce mihi, da veniam ut veniam,—
'If you a man would be,—
If you know what love can do,—
Have pity, and suffer me
With welcome to come to you.'
It was probably a lover in straits who scratched on the wall a line of the Aeneid (IX. 404) as a prayer to Venus: Tu, dea, tu praesens nostro succurre labori,—