In vetulam loquacem.

Distichon.¹

Odi verbosos: ego servo silentia dicis.       Tune silere potes? Ceu modo, non aliter.

In the title: The title (likely the editor Macedo’s) suggests this poem ridicules an old woman, although the poem itself does not indicate the gender of the addressee. ¹ This poem, like “In loquacem,” can be interpreted as a conversation between the poem’s speaker and an interlocutor. We have chosen not to include quotation marks in order to preserve the poem’s original punctuation.