Classic Poem

M ARULLA has made you the father of seven,
But they are not your children or your neighbour's even.
Conceived in slaves' beds or on mats where she lay,
Their faces your wife's peccadilloes betray.
This curly-haired rascal we see by his look
Is a nigger, the offspring of Santra the cook.
The next, blubber-lipped, with a flat, crushed-in nose,
The wrestler Pannychus' own image shows.
The third is blear-eyed and you know who's his maker
If you've ever beheld blear-eyed Dama the baker.
The fourth is pale-cheeked, with a catamite's face;
To Lygdus your minion his birth we can trace.
The fifth, with sharp head and two long asses' ears,
Is the son of your fool Cyrta, so it appears.
Last of all the two sisters, one dark-haired, one red,
From your bailiff and Crotus the flautist were bred,
While your Niobid troupe would have been at least ten
Had Coressus and Dindymus only been men.