Sharpen Your Scissors, Cinnamus!

Martial, Epigrams 7.64:

“You, Cinnamus, who were the most famous barber in the city, and afterward were made a knight by the mistress’s gift, sought after Sicanian cities and the realm of Aetna in your zeal to escape the sad business of the forum. How now will you endure your heavy later years? What will your unfortunate and fugitive repose do for you? You can’t be a lecturer, a professor, or a schoolteacher; you can’t be a Cynic or a Stoic, nor can you sell your voice and applause in the Sicilian theater. One thing remains, Cinnamus: you’re going to be a barber again!”

Qui tonsor fueras tota notissimus urbe
et post hoc dominae munere factus eques,
Sicanias urbes Aetnaeaque regna petisti,
Cinname, cum fugeres tristia iura fori.
Qua nunc arte graues tolerabis inutilis annos?              5
Quid facit infelix et fugitiua quies?
Non rhetor, non grammaticus ludiue magister,
non Cynicus, non tu Stoicus esse potes,
uendere nec uocem Siculis plausumque theatris:
quod superest, iterum, Cinname, tonsor eris.              10