Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) - 2.3.12. lyrics

Dear Stoic, who I pray given all your losses might Always trade profitably, in what foolish way, since There's more than one, am I mad? I seem sane to myself. ‘So what? When Agave, plucks at her luckless son's head, And carries it off, does she even then think herself mad?' I own to my folly (let me acknowledge the truth) And my madness too: but tell me this, from what defect Of mind do you think I suffer? ‘Well, listen, firstly You're building things, that is, imitating great men, Though tip to toe you're but two foot tall: and you laugh At Turbo the gladiator's spirit and swagger In armour too big for his body: who's more foolish? Or is whatever Maecenas does right for you, Unlike him as you are, and unfit to compete? When the frog was away from home, then the calf trod On her young, only one surviving to tell mum the tale Of the huge beast that k**ed his kin: ‘how big', she asked Puffing herself up: ‘big as this?' ‘Oh, half as big again!' ‘How about this?' And she puffed herself up more and more. ‘Not if you were to burst,' said he, ‘could you be as a big!' That description is not too unlike yourself, then add Your poetry too, that is, pour some more oil on the fire, Verse that if ever a sane man wrote, you were sane when You wrote yours too. And your vile temper,' Now wait! ‘Your living beyond your means,' Damasippus, mind your Own business! ‘Your pa**ion for girls, and boys, in thousands.' O greater madman, have mercy, now, on this lesser!