[Aaron Poochigian]

Hey, the openly pseudonymous Mike Juster's translation of Maximianus (the greatest poet you've never heard of) is out! http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15717.html

Max is lusty and cranky and dear to my heart.

[Michael Juster]

Thanks, Aaron! For an obscure text, it has been going pretty well between The Millions making it one of its six February "must-reads" and hitting as high as #35 on the Amazon medieval literature charts.

It's expensive, but it is the kind of book bigger libraries buy (if you ask them).

[Aaron Poochigian]

The thought of the "Medieval Literature Charts" is highly amusing. This week will Chaucer at last unseat Beowulf as #1?

Max:

Aemula quid cessas finem properare senectus?
cur et in hoc fesso corpore tarda uenis?
solue precor miseram tali de carcere uitam:
mors est iam requies, uiuere poena mihi,
non sum qui fueram:

Envious old age, why do you hesitate to hasten my end? Why do you arrive slowly in this tired body? I beg you: release my wretched life from this prison-house. Death is now rest for me, to live is punishment.

I am not what I was.

[Allen Tice]

I believe some of this was in Arion? Nice lines there.

Two links relevant to the quote just above (worry not, there's nothing in Latin, alas, alas):

https://hubpages.com/education/Old-Age-Aint-for-Sissies

https://hubpages.com/literature/Quotes-on-Aging