The Last To Post Wins!

[Chen]

go on...

EROTIC HONKING

[Chen]

i'm gonna go dress up as a clown to scare off kiddies when i'm old enough

that'll show them, kiddies

[Chen]

what if the clown costume is haunted and i fuse to it and become a supervillain?

[Chen]

clownpiece is pretty low tier of a 2hu and a clown

[Chen]

DOESN'T EVEN WEAR KAWAII MAKEUP

[Chen]

more like a SHITHU

[Breezy Kanzaki]

hi thread

[Chen]

We should write for the few not the many

If you want to write what’s worth a second reading,

You must often reverse your stylus, and smooth the wax:

Don’t write to amaze the crowd, be content with the few.

Are you mad enough to want your poems mouthed in school?

Not I: as proud Arbuscula said when they hissed her act,

‘It’s fine so long as the knights applaud’: she scorned the rest.

Should I bother about that louse Pantilius, should I

Be tortured by Demetrius’ sneers behind my back,

Or that fool Fannius’ attack, Hermogenes’ sponge?

Only let Plotius commend me, and Varius

Maecenas, Virgil, Valgius, and the best of men

Octavius, Fuscus: let the Viscus brothers praise!

And I can name you Pollio, without flattery,

And you, and your brother, Messalla, and you,

Bibulus, Servius, and you my honest Furnius,

And many another learned friend, I’m aware

I omit: and I’d like these verses, such as they are,

To please them, grieved if they delight them less than I

Hope. But you Demetrius, you Tigellius, go carp

Among the armchairs of those female disciples!

Go boy, quickly, add these lines to my little book.

[Breezy Kanzaki]

hi breezy

how are you

[ZemZem]

I see Anabel

[Breezy Kanzaki]

I see Anabel

I see Ziem

[Chen]

Gourmet eating is ridiculous

Yet I could hardly change your wish to kiss your palate

With the peacock when it’s served, and not the pullet,

You’re seduced by vain show, a rare bird costs gold,

With its ornate tail spectacularly spread: as if it

Mattered. Do you ever eat those feathers you admire?

Does it have the same beauty when it’s cooked? The meat

Doesn’t differ between the two, yet to think that you

Prefer this to that, deceived by the appearance! Well:

How can you tell then if the pike that’s gasping here

Was caught in the Tiber or the sea, in the current near

The bridges, or the Tuscan river’s mouth? Madman,

You praise a three pound mullet you’ve to eat in portions.

It’s the size that attracts you I see, well then why not

A large pike? Because no doubt the pike’s naturally

Larger, while the mullet’s normally much smaller.

It’s a belly seldom hungry that scorns common fare.

‘I’d love to see something huge served in a huge dish,’

Cries a throat that would be worthy of the Harpies.

Come you Southerlies and spoil their fare! And yet

However fresh the boar and turbot they already stink,

Since too much richness upsets a weakened stomach,

Gorged, it much prefers radishes and bitter leaves.

Yet poor man’s food’s not wholly absent from the feasts

Of kings: cheap eggs, black olives hold their place. It’s not

So long since the auctioneer Gallonius’ serving sturgeon,

Caused a scandal. And the sea hid as much turbot, then.

Yet turbot were still safe, and storks safe in their nests,

Till a creative ‘praetor’ led you astray! So that now,

If someone proclaimed roast seagulls were tasty,

The youth of Rome, so easily seduced, would agree.

[Emeraldfox]

Peas or corn

[Breezy Kanzaki]

same tbh

[Chen]

Unstable characters suffer more

‘I’ve listened a while and wanted to say a few words

But being a slave daren’t.’ Are you Davus? Yes, Davus,

A servant fond of his master, quite virtuous, but not

Enough so to die young.’ Come on, then, use the freedom

December allows, since our ancestors wished it: speak!

‘Some men love vice, yet follow a constant purpose:

The majority waver, sometimes grasping what’s right,

At another time slaves to evil. Priscus, often

Noted for wearing three rings on his left hand, then none,

Lived so capriciously, he’d change his tunic each hour,

Leaving a great house he’d suddenly enter some dive

From which a plain freedman couldn’t emerge without shame:

Now he’d choose to live as a lecher in Rome, now a scholar

In Athens, born when fluid Vertumnus was changing form.

When the gout he deserved crippled Volanerius’

Finger-joints, that joker hired a man by the day

To pick up the dice, and rattle them in the cup:

Because he stuck to one vice, he was less unhappy

And preferable to one who at one moment handles

A rope that is taut, the next moment one that’s slack.’

[Chen]

So who is free? The wise man: in command of himself,

Unafraid of poverty, chains, or death, bravely

Defying his passions, despising honours, complete

In himself, smoothed and rounded, so that nothing

External can cling to his polished surface, whom

Fortune by attacking ever wounds herself. Can you

Claim any of this for your own? The woman demands

A fortune, bullies you, slams the door in your face,

Drowns you in cold water, then calls you back! Take your

Neck from the vile yoke. “I’m free, free,” say it! You can’t:

A despot, and no slight one, oppresses your spirit,

Pricking sharp spurs in your tired flanks, yanking when you shy.’

[Chen]

No married women for me!

Wouldn’t it be better to ask what boundaries Nature

Sets to desire, what privations she can stand and what

Will grieve her, and so distinguish solid from void?

Do you ask for a golden cup when you’re dying

Of thirst? Do you scorn all but peacock, or turbot

When you’re starving? When your prick swells, then,

And a young slave girl or boy’s nearby you could take

At that instant, would you rather burst with desire?

Not I: I love the sexual pleasure that’s easy to get.

‘Wait a bit’, ‘More cash’, ‘If my husband’s away’, that girl’s

For the priests, Philodemus says: requesting, himself,

One who’s not too dear, or slow to come when she’s told.

She should be fair and poised: dressed so as not to try

To seem taller or whiter of skin than nature made her.

When a girl like that slips her left thigh under my right,

She’s Ilia or Egeria: I name her however I choose,

No fear, while I fuck, of husbands back from the country,

Doors bursting, dogs howling, the whole house echoing

With the sound of his knocking, the girl deathly pale,

Leaping the bed, her knowing maid shouting afraid

For her limbs, the adulteress for her dowry, I for myself.

Nor, clothes awry, of having to flee bare-foot, scared

For my cash, my skin, or at the very least my reputation.

It’s bad news to be caught: even with Fabio judging.

[Chen]

We denigrate people unjustly

We turn virtues themselves upside down in our desire

To foul a spotless jar: the decent man who lives here

Among us, who’s an utterly humble soul, we call him

Slow-witted, thick-headed. Another who flees all deceit

And who never offers a single loophole to malice,

Though we live among the kind of people, where Envy

Is keen and accusations flourish: instead of noting his

Common sense and caution, we call him false and sly.

Of one who’s unsophisticated, as I’ve often shown

Myself to be with you, Maecenas, interrupting you

Perhaps, while reading or thinking, with tiresome chatter:

We say: ‘He quite lacks the social graces.’ Ah, how

Casually we enact these laws against ourselves!

No man alive is free of faults: the best of us is him

Who’s burdened with the least. If he desires my love,

My gentle friend must, in all fairness, weigh my virtues

With my faults, and incline to the more numerous,

Assuming that is my virtues are the more numerous.

And by that rule I’ll weigh him in the same scale.

If you really expect a friend not to be offended

By your boils, pardon him his warts: it’s only fair

That he forgives who asks forgiveness for his faults.

[Breezy Kanzaki]

Shezzy how does it feel being green

[Chen]

Where is our tolerance though?

When we consider our own faults, we accidentally blind

Our eyes with a smear of ointment, but viewing our friends’

We’re as keen-eyed as eagles or Epidaurian snakes.

The result is that they gaze just as keenly at ours.

That man’s a bit hot-tempered, not acceptable

To today’s sensitive folks: another makes you smile

With his rustic haircut, his sloppy toga, loose sandals

That barely stay on his feet: and yet he’s a good man,

None better, and your friend, and great gifts lie hidden

Beneath that form. In short, give yourself a good shaking

And consider whether it’s nature or perhaps a bad habit

That long ago sowed the seeds of wickedness in you:

For the bracken we burn springs up in neglected fields.

Think of the case of a lover in all his blindness

Who fails to see his darling’s ugly blemishes,

Or is even charmed, like Balbinus with Hagne’s mole.

I wished we erred in the same way with our friends,

And morality gave such errors a decent name.

We should behave to a friend as father to son

And not be disgusted by some fault. If a boy squints

His father names him Paetus : Pullus if he’s puny

Like that dwarf who used to exist called Sisyphus:

Varus if he has crooked legs: or if he can barely stand

On twisted ankles gives him the cognomen Scaurus .

Well then let’s call a friend who’s mean, ‘thrifty’. Another

Who’s tactless and boasts a bit: he just wants his friends

To think him ‘sociable’. or perhaps the man’s more fierce

And outspoken: let’s have it he’s ‘frank’ and fearless.

He’s a hothead? We’ll just count him one of the ‘eager’.

This it is that unites friends, and then keeps them united.

[Breezy Kanzaki]

Wow

Are you hating on the Greens

[Chen]

His satisfaction with his fate

I’d be insane to be ashamed of such a father,

So I won’t defend myself by saying, as many do,

It’s not their fault they don’t have well-known, noble

Parents. What I say and think are quite otherwise:

If at a certain point in our lives Nature required us

To relive the past, and choose what parents we wished,

To suit our pride, then I’d still be content with mine,

I’d not want parents blessed with rods and thrones.

The crowd would think me mad, you sane perhaps,

For not wishing to carry an unaccustomed burden.

I’d be forced at once to acquire more possessions,

Welcome more visitors, take one or two companions

So as not to travel or visit the countryside alone,

Keep more horses and grooms, take a wagon-train,

While now I can ride on a gelded mule to Tarentum,

Its flanks galled by a heavy pack, withers by the rider:

No one will call me vulgar, Tillius the praetor,

As they do you, when five slaves, on the Tibur road,

Follow behind you with a chest, and a case of wine.

[Chen]

[Tryhard]

far left wing/authoritarianism makes me sad

it's like they are shitting in the pot that i like

[Nobody]