Iam tanti tibi non fuit redire.
(Of pestilent Kissers: Rome bestows more kisses on you, on your return to her after fifteen years’ absence, than ever Lesbia gave Catullus. The whole neighbourhood kisses you, and the hirsute countryman presses you in his goaty embrace. One side the weaver is upon you, the other the fuller, here the cobbler who but now kissed his leather; here comes the owner of a perilous chin, here the one-eyed man and here the blear, and the fellator, and the cunnilingue fresh from work. Now surely to return was not of such importance to you as all this.)
Book XI. Epigram 98:
Ad Bassum.
Effugere non est, Basse, basiatores.
Instant, morantur, persequuntur, occurrunt
Et hinc et illinc, usquequaque, quacunque.
Non ulcus acre pustulaeve lucentes,
Nec triste mentum sordidique lichenes,
Nec labra pingui delibuta ceroto,