Four Poems on Conviviality, after Martial

III.50–Indigestion

The reason, Ligurinus, behind the dinner invite?Not so we can eat and drink but a chance to reciteyour verse and worse. Between salad and shrimp cocktailit gets served up like some voluminous snail.Delaying the first course, Book II, a further earful.Second course is preluded by Books III and IV.Then comes Book V. Even the choicest boar,when served up many times, will lose its flavor.Take your poems, Ligurinus, and go wrap mackerelwith them. That or you'll soon be dining by yourself…

Haec tibi, non alia, est ad cenam causa vocandi,    versiculos recites ut, Ligurine, tuos.Deposui soleas, adfertur protinus ingens    inter lactucas oxygarumque liber:alter perlegitur, dum fercula prima morantur:    tertius est, nec adhuc mensa secunda venit:et quartum recitas et quintum denique librum.    Putidus est, totiens si mihi ponis aprum.Quod si non scombris scelerata poemata donas,    cenabis solus iam, Ligurine, domi.

III.60–Patron/Client, Different Dinners

Now dinner-offer replaces by law the 10 sesterces dueat daybreak, why aren't I served the same menu as you?You feast on oysters fresh from lake Lucrino,I suck on a mussel plucked from Tiber's mud a week ago;you eat truffles, I mushrooms pigs would turn their snouts at;you get busy with a piping hot turbot, I nibble a tepid sprat.A fried dove with giant thighs sates your appetite,a magpie that's died in in its cage is what I get.To dine with you, that'd be fine. Dining against you? Shame!Why scrap the sportula when our wine and food aren't the same?

Cum vocer ad cenam non iam venalis ut ante,    cur mihi non eadem quae tibi cena datur?Ostrea tu sumis stagno saturata Lucrino,    sugitur inciso mitulus ore mihi;sunt tibi boleti, fungos ego sumo suillos;    res tibi cum rhombo est, at mihi cum sparulo.Aureus inmodicis turtur te clunibus implet,    ponitur in cavea mortua pica mihi.Cur sine te ceno cum tecum, Pontice, cenem?    Sportula quod non est prosit: edamus idem.

V.64–Empowerment

Pour me, Callistus, a flagon of Falernian red;You, Alcimus, cool it with summer snowsand while it's still there anoint my hairthen weave roses around my head.Augustus's Mausoleum just down the roadurges "carpe diem": even gods can end up dead.

Sextantes, Calliste, duos infunde Falerni,    tu super aestivas, Alcime, solve nives,pinguescat nimio madidus mihi crinis amomo    lassenturque rosis tempora sutilibus.tam vicina iubent nos vivere Mausolea,    cum doceant ipsos posse perire deos.

VI.92–Safety Glass

Engraved there by Myron,the serpent on this wine-waremeans, dear drinkard, Beware:Certain vintages bear poison.

Caelatus tibi cum sit, Anniane,serpens in patera Myronos arte,Vaticana bibis: bibis venenum.