Rightly a lordly demesne makes Firman Mentula count for
Wealthy! the rich fine things, then the variety there!
Game in plenty to choose, fish, field, and meadow with hunting;
Only the waste exceeds strangely the quantity still.
5 Wealthy? perhaps I grant it; if all, wealth asks for, is absent.
Praise the demesne? no doubt; only be needy the man.
CXV.
Acres thirty in all, good grass, own Mentula master;
Forty to plough; bare seas, arid or empty, the rest.
Poorly methinks might Croesus a man so sumptuous equal,
Counted in one rich park owner of all he can ask.
5 Grass or plough, big woods, much mountain, mighty morasses;
On to the farthest North, on to the boundary main.
Vastness is all that is here; yet Mentula reaches a vaster—
Man? not so; 'tis a vast mountainous ominous He.
CXVI.
Oft with a studious heart, which hunted closely, requiring
Skill great Battiades' poesies haply to send,
Laying thus thy rage in rest, lest everlasting
Darts should reach me, to wound still an assailable head:
5 Barren now I see that labour of any requital,
Gellius; here all prayers fall to the ground, nor avail.
No; but a robe I carry, the barbs, thy folly, to muffle;
Mine strike sure; thy deep injury they shall atone.