Library › Latin: Lyric & Elegy › Epigramma
A two-line epigram attributed to Pupius, a dramatic poet of the late Republic: ‘My friends and acquaintances will weep at my death, for the people wept enough over me while I lived.’ The point turns on the tears his tragic plays drew from their audiences.
Horace refers to the ‘tearful poems of Pupius’, and the epigram is quoted in the ancient commentary on that passage. It is a witty example of the self-epitaph, a form beloved of Roman poets, and the only surviving trace of Pupius’s work.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Musisque Deoque, the digital archive of Latin poetry (edition: J. Blänsdorf, FPL, 1995), licensed CC BY-SA. Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.