Four Poems on Conviviality, after Martial

Abstract

The reason, Ligurinus, behind the dinner invite? Not so we can eat and drink but a chance to recite your verse and worse. Between salad and shrimp cocktail it 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 mackerel with them. That or you’ll soon be dining by yourself...