“Whether my songs help me or hurt me I am not sure:
But they have been an obstacle to my good fortune.
Though there was Thebes, Troy or Caesar’s deed,
It was Corinna alone who moved me.
I wish the Muses has turned away when I began my songs,
Or that Apollo had refused the work begun.
It is still not the custom to admit a poet as a witness;
I wish that my words had lacked all weight.”

An prosint, dubium, nocuerunt carmina semper;
invidiae nostris illa fuere bonis.
cum Thebae, cum Troia foret, cum Caesaris acta,
ingenium movit sola Corinna meum.
aversis utinam tetigissem carmina Musis,
Phoebus et inceptum destituisset opus!
Nec tamen ut testes mos est audire poetas;
malueram verbis pondus abesse meis.