Let us bathe, Prodice, and garland ourselves, and drain unmixed wine, lifting larger cups; little is our life of gladness, then old age will stop the rest, and death is the end.
II THE USE OF LIFE NICARCHUS
Must I not die? what matters it to me whether I depart to Hades gouty or fleet of foot? for many will carry me; let me become lame, for hardly on their account need I ever cease from revelling.
III VAIN RICHES ANTIPHANES
Thou reckonest, poor wretch; but advancing time breeds white old age even as it does interest; and neither having drunk, nor bound a flower on thy brows, nor ever known myrrh nor a delicate darling, thou shalt be dead, leaving thy great treasury in its wealth, out of those many coins carrying with thee but the one.
IV MINIMUM CREDULA POSTERO PALLADAS
All human must pay the debt of death, nor is there any mortal who knows whether he shall be alive to-morrow; learning this clearly, O man, make thee merry, keeping the wine-god close by thee for oblivion of death, and take thy pleasure with the Paphian while thou drawest thy ephemeral life; but all else give to Fortune's control.
V DONEC HODIE AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Drink and be merry; for what is to-morrow or what the future? no man knows. Run not, labour not; as thou canst, give, share, consume, be mortal-minded; to be alive and not to be alive are no way at all apart. All life is such, only the turn of the scale; if thou art beforehand, it is thine; and if thou diest, all is another's, and thou hast nothing.