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
Her glittering car the souls of all mankind;
Nor less the lowly than the noble feels
The onward roll of those victorious wheels. 
Come, tell me, Tillius, have you cause to thank
The stars that gave you power, restored you rank? 
Ill-will, scarce audible in low estate,
Gives tongue, and opens loudly, now you’re great. 
Poor fools! they take the stripe, draw on the shoe,
And hear folks asking, “Who’s that fellow? who?”
Just as a man with Barrus’s disease,
His one sole care a lady’s eye to please,
Whene’er he walks abroad, sets on the fair
To con him over, leg, face, teeth, and hair;
So he that undertakes to hold in charge
Town, country, temples, all the realm at large,
Gives all the world a title to enquire
The antecedents of his dam or sire. 
“What? you to twist men’s necks or scourge them, you,
The son of Syrus, Dama, none knows who?”
“Aye, but I sit before my colleague; he
Ranks with my worthy father, not with me.” 
And think you, on the strength of this, to rise
A Paullus or Messala in our eyes? 
Talk of your colleague! he’s a man of parts: 
Suppose three funerals jostle with ten carts
All in the forum, still you’ll hear his voice
Through horn and clarion:  that commends our
choice.

Now on myself, the freedman’s son, I touch,
The freedman’s son, by all contemned as such,
Once, when a legion followed my command,
Now, when Maecenas takes me by the hand. 
But this and that are different:  some stern judge
My military rank with cause might grudge,
But not your friendship, studious as you’ve been
To choose good men, not pushing, base, or mean.