The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.

I prayed only for a small piece of land, a garden, an ever-flowing spring, and bit of woods.

An envious man grows lean at another's fatness.

The snow has at last melted, the fields regain their herbage, and the trees their leaves.

Whither, O god of wine, art thou hurrying me, whilst under thy all-powerful influence?

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

In trying to be concise I become obscure.