​Yesterday, Licinius, we were hanging out
playing about on my tablets
with the agreement we’d just be self-indulgent,
each of us writing lines of poetry
turning them over and over again in this metre and that,
taking turns to deliver our lines laughing and drinking.
And I left there so fired up with
your brilliance, Licinius,
that food was useless to my suffering self,
and no sleep would close down my sight 
as I turned over and over again on my couch
in a wild restlessness, longing only for daylight
so that I could talk to you and be with you again.
But then morning came and my half-dead limbs
lay strewn across the couch exhausted
from all the exertions of the restless night
so  instead I just wrote this poem, to
make sure you would know about my suffering.
Don’t let it go to your head! 
And don’t take it unseriously, either,
or Fate will demand you pay a price.
Fate is a passionate goddess – you don’t want to work her up.