Poetry Doesn't Pay

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), Satira I.88-90:

Apollo, tua mercé, tua mercé, santo
   collegio de le Muse, io non possiedo
   tanto per voi, ch’io possa farmi un manto.  
 
Apollo, thanks to you, thanks to you, sacred
   college of Muses, I do not earn
   enough to buy myself a cloak. 

Notes:
Ludovico Ariosto, Satire, ed. by Alfredo D’Orto (Milan: Fondazione Pietro Bembo, 2002), p.14. My translation.