Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis
c. AD 94 · Roman Empire
You admire only the old poets, Vacerra, and praise none but the dead. Forgive me, Vacerra, but it is not worth dying just to please you.
Miraris veteres, Vacerra, solos
nec laudas nisi mortuos poetas.
Ignoscas petimus, Vacerra: tanti
non est, ut placeam tibi, perire.Epigrams 8.69
In the same thread
Antara ibn Shaddad عنترة بن شداد
later 6th century · pre-Islamic Arabia · He opens his poem with a sigh that those before him have already said everything
Have the poets left any place still to be patched? And did you know the dwelling again, after doubting?
هل غادر الشعراء من متردم
أم هل عرفت الدار بعد توهمThe Muallaqa, opening line, Divan of Antara
Yoshida Kenko 兼好
c. 1330 · late Kamakura Japan
With nothing to do, I sit all day before my inkstone, writing down without order or purpose the trifles that drift through my mind, and it gives me a strange, half-crazed feeling.
つれづれなるままに、日くらし、すずりに向かひて、心にうつりゆくよしなしごとを、そこはかとなく書きつくれば、あやしうこそものぐるほしけれ。Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), the preface
Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis
c. AD 86 · Roman Empire
The little book you recite, Fidentinus, is mine. But when you recite it badly, it begins to be yours.
Quem recitas meus est, o Fidentine, libellus:
sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus.Epigrams 1.38
Jeong Yakyong 丁若鏞
1832 · Joseon Korea
When the mood comes, I turn a thought; when the thought comes, I write it down. I am a man of Joseon, and gladly I write Joseon poems.
興到卽運意 意到卽寫之
我是朝鮮人 甘作朝鮮詩Yeoyudang jeonseo, "An Old Man's Pleasures," fifth poem
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