Work, Little A**
Graffiti from Pompeii and more Improvised Verse
Preserved under layers of ash from the tragic eruption of mount Vesuvius was found this inscription. It was probably a boy in secondary school, being as it was found on the walls of a Collegium, and given the painstakingly neat penmanship.
It means: Work, little donkey, just as I have worked: it will do you good, too!
Probaby the work meant is schoolwork.
LABORA ASELLE QUOMODO EGO LABORAVI
ET PRODERIT TIBI
Deeply enough
Injured by the parchment's futility,
Scorn filled
The young
Roman schoolboy's distracted mind;
And the slopes of Vesuvius
Couldn't help but fill his heart with
Terrible shadows that he didn't see
In his intentness on carving the graffiti
On the wall off his school;
Nevertheless [...]
About the Creator
Rob Angeli
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt
There are tears of things, and mortal objects touch the mind.
-Virgil Aeneid I.462
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