Catullus 22

That Suffenus, Varus, whom you know well, is a charming man and witty and urbane, and the same man makes very, very many verses. I think that he has a thousand or ten (thousand) or more written, nor thus, as it is done, recorded on palimpsest: royal pages, new books, new scroll ends, red ties, covers, lines with lead and everything leveled with pumice. When you read these, that fine and urbane one Suffenus seems on the contrary a goat-herder or a ditch-digger, so does he differ and change. Why do we think this is? Who once seemed a wit or if there is anything wittier than this thing, the same man is more witless than a witless rube as soon as he touches poetry, and likewise never is he as happy as when he writes poetry, he so rejoices in himself an he himself wonders at himself. We all are too deceived similarly, and there is no one whom you cannot see as a Suffenus in some matter. His own error is attributed to each, but we do not see (of) the knapsack which is on (our) back.