Fratresque unanimos anumque matrem?
Venisti. O mihi nuntii beati.
There is not a word in the poem wasted; not one that does not come straight and strong from the heart. The 'Invitation to Fabullus' is in a lighter strain, and is written with the freedom and humour which he could use to add a charm to his friendly intercourse[585], and a sting to his less congenial relations. Yet through the playful banter of this poem his delicate and kindly nature betrays itself in the words 'venuste noster,' and in those lines of true feeling,—
Sed contra accipies meros amores
Seu quid suavius elegantiusve.
His affection for both comes out incidentally in his remonstrance with Marrucinus Asinius[586] for having filched after dinner, 'in ioco atque vino,' one of his napkins, which he valued as memorials of the friends who had sent them to him, and which he endows with some share of the love he felt for them,—
Haec amem necessest
Ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.
The lampoons on Piso and his favourites, Porcius and Socration, show that those who wronged his friends could rouse in him as generous indignation as those who wronged himself.
Other poems express the pain and disappointment of a very sensitive nature, which expects more active and disinterested sympathy from others than ordinary men care either to give or to receive. Of this sort are his complaint to Cornificius[587],—