Though the plebs, too, and even animals, experience pleasure, a genuine man differs from them in this especially, that he makes love in some way a noble art, and, admiring it, knows all its divine value, makes it present in his mind, thus satisfying not his body merely, but his soul.

More than once, when I think here of the emptiness, the uncertainty, the dreariness of life, it occurs to me that perhaps thou hast chosen better, and that not Caesar's court, but war and love, are the only objects for which it is worth while to be born and to live.
"Thou wert fortunate in war, be fortunate also in love; and if thou art curious as to what men are doing at the court of Caesar, I will inform thee from time to time.

We are living here at Antium, and nursing our heavenly voice; we continue to cherish the same hatred of Rome, and think of betaking ourselves to Baiae for the winter, to appear in public at Naples, whose inhabitants, being Greeks, will appreciate us better than that wolf brood on the banks of the Tiber.

People will hasten thither from Baiae, from Pompeii, Puteoli, Cumae, and Stabia; neither applause nor crowns will be lacking, and that will be an encouragement for the proposed expedition to Achaea.
"But the memory of the infant Augusta?
Yes! we are bewailing her yet.

We are singing hymns of our own composition, so wonderful that the sirens have been hiding from envy in Amphitrite's deepest caves.