 
                            
                        
                        
                        
                                
                                    “I am the poor man's poet; because I am poor myself and I have known what it is to be in love. Not being able to pay them in presents, I pay my mistresses in poetry.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Pauperibus vates ego sum, quia pauper amavi;
Cum dare non possem munera, verba dabam.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Book II, lines 165–166 (tr. J. Lewis May) 
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
                                    
 
        
     
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                            