C. Valerius Catullus, Carmina
Leonard C. Smithers, Ed.

That Suffenus, Varus, whom you know well, is a man fair spoken, witty and urbane, and one who makes lengthy verses. I think he has written at full length ten thousand or more, nor are they set down, as commonly, on scraped parchment: regal paper, new boards, new bosses, straps, red parchment, the whole thing ruled with the lead and smoothed off with the pumice. But when you read these, that refined and urbane Suffenus seems on the contrary to be a mere goatherd or ditch-digger, so great and shocking is the change. What can we think of this? The same man, who just now seemed a man-about-town, or if anything could be more polished than that, is stupider than the stupid countryside as soon as he touches poetry, and nor is the same man ever as happy as when he is writing poetry—so greatly is he pleased with himself, so much does he admire himself. Still, we are all the same and are deceived, nor is there any man in whom you can not see a Suffenus in some one point. Each of us has his assigned delusion: but we see not what's in the wallet on our back.