Date: 54 B.C.

"And summon homewards the mistress, eager for her new husband, firm-prisoning her soul in love; as tight-clasping ivy, wandering here and there, wraps the tree around."

— Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 - c. 54 B.C.)

Date: 54 B.C.

"Ah, woeful one, with sorrows unending distraught, Erycina sows thorny cares deep in your bosom, since that time when Theseus fierce in his vigor set out from the curved bay of Piraeus, and gained the Gortynian roofs of the iniquitous ruler."

— Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 - c. 54 B.C.)

Date: 58

"As in a tilled-field, when ploughed for corn, some flowers are found amongst it, and yet, though these posies may charm the eye, all this labour was not spent in order to produce them--the man who sowed the field had another object in view he gained this over and above it--so pleasure is not [th...

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: 1718 [first published 1684-1694]

"For sottish ease, and a life wholly sedentary and given up to Idleness, spoils and debilitates, not only the Body but the Soul too: And as close Waters shadowed over by bordering Trees, and stagnated in default of Springs, so supply current and motion to them become foul and corrupt; so methinks...

— Plutarch (c. 46-120)