7-8: ‘O your chatter ... without you now.’ Such was the joy expressed by Decimus Ausonius, a Latin poet of the fourth century AD famous for writing epigrams. A home can be at one moment a hub of childish activity and the next instant a place of grief and desolation: "Just as you were practising to transform your babbling into the first words of childhood and were of ripe natural gifts, we had to mourn for your decease." Parentalia X.