What if, Maecenas, none, though ne'er so blue
His Tusco-Lydian blood, surpasses you?
What if your grandfathers, on either hand,
Father's and mother's, were in high command?
Not therefore do you curl the lip of scorn
At nobodies, like me, of freedman born:
Far other rule is yours, of rank or birth
To raise no question, so there be but worth,
Convinced, and truly too, that wights unknown,
Ere Servius' rise set freedmen on the throne,
Despite their ancestors, not seldom came
To high employment, honours, and fair fame,
While great Laevinus, scion of the race
That pulled down Tarquin from his pride of place,
Has ne'er been valued at a poor half-crown
E'en in the eyes of that wise judge, the town,
That muddy source of dignity, which sees
No virtue but in busts and lineal trees.

Well, but for us; what thoughts should ours be, say,
Removed from vulgar judgments miles away?
Grant that Laevinus yet would be preferred
To low-born Decius by the common herd,
That censor Appius, just because I came
From freedman's loins, would obelize my name--
And serve me right; for 'twas my restless pride
Kept me from sleeping in my own poor hide.
But Glory, like a conqueror, drags behind