Philodemos:
You do not yet wear the toga.
You have been fed fiction when other
Studies would be far more nutritious
Still your mind is supple even subtle.

I have, however, heard the nickname
With which your chums berate you
Telling me the caution they see and
Know you would be better without.

I am sorry to make you blush
But your anxiety is my own special enemy
Who I have pledged to exterminate
Whoever and wherever he may touch.

I proffer: happiness is absence of pain
Which we may easily even blithely claim
If we learn not to fear: failure, folly or
Death, to celebrate our friends and live simply.

This day in me you have a new friend
Perhaps I will earn your phileo through
Further conversation and by bringing you to
Know realities only mathematics can show.