Note 9 — AUTHORITIES.
Reading edition
Priapeia, Carm. 1.
Ludens haec ego teste te, Priape, Horto carmina digna, non libello; Ergo quidquid est, quod otiosus Templi parietibus tui notavi In partem accipias bonam rogamus.
Carm. 41.
Quisquis venerit huc, poeta fiat, Et versus mihi dedicet iocosos; Qui non fecerit, inter eruditos Ficosissimus ambulet poeta.
Carm. 49.
Tu quicunque vides circa tectoria nostra Non nimium casti carmina plena ioci;
(The songs I sing, thou art my witness, Priapus, are worthy but of a garden, not of a book. Wherefore whate’er it be that in leisure hours I have writ on thy temple-walls, receive, we pray, in good part.)
(Whosoe’er comes hither must become a poet and dedicate to me some merry lines; whoe’er refuses, amidst the learned let him walk most wooden of poets.—N.B. ficosus means at once like a fig-tree and afflicted with piles; perhaps we might render “most costive of poets”.)
(Thou beholdest, whoe’er thou art, around the plaster of our walls lines teeming with not too chastened a wit.)
also in Martial, bk. XII. Epigr. 62. we read:
Qui carbone rudi, putrique creta Scribit carmina, quae legunt cacantes.
(Who with rough charcoal or crumbly chalk writes verses that men read as they shit.)