In the Special Paper of the Oxford and Cambridge Board's A Level examination in Latin last summer (1970) I tried the experiment of setting, as an appendage to a longer unseen from Martial, a quatrain which candidates were invited to translate into either prose or verse. The response was gratifying: out of 200 candidates offering the paper, close on one-third produced versions incorporating at least one pair of rhymes; there were also some attempts at unrhymed verse, but only a few of these had a pattern which effectively distinguished them from prose. Considering that this was an exercise claiming only a tiny fraction of a three-hour session, the number of candidates who both grasped the point of the epigram and showed some wit in versifying it was quite sufficient to mark the experiment as a success.