Book 13

I So that mackerel-fry want no wrapper and olives no overcoat, And the grubby bookworm fear no pinching famine, Squander, my Muses, the Nile's papyrus — my loss is your ruin: Look, drunken midwinter calls for fresh jokes. My dice-throw fights no duel with the high-and-mighty piece, My ivory shakes no double-six against the dog: This page is my walnuts, this page is my dice-box; Such gaming brings me neither loss nor gain.

II Turn up your nose as long as you like, be one big nose, The kind Atlas himself, asked to bear it, would refuse, And go ahead, outsneer the great sneerer Latinus: Still you can't say more against my trifles Than I have said myself. Why grind tooth on tooth By gnawing? You need meat, if you want to be full. Don't waste your effort: keep your venom for the men Who admire themselves — I know these things are nothing. Yet even this "nothing" is not too little, if you come With a fair ear and no scowl on your morning face.

III The whole crowd of Xenia in this slender little book Will cost you four coins, bought and paid. Four is too much? It could go for two, And the bookseller Tryphon would still turn a profit. These couplets you may send to your guests as gifts, If coins are as scarce for you as they are for me. You will find each thing's own name written above it as a heading: Skip whatever is not to your taste.

IV. Incense That Germanicus may rule heaven's court late, and long Reign on earth — offer pious incense to Jove.

V. Pepper The waxy fig-pecker glowing with its plump rump, When luck deals it your way — if you're wise, add pepper.

VI. Spelt-Gruel I send spelt-gruel; let a rich man send you mead. If the rich man won't send it, you'll have to buy.

VII. Beans If the pale beans foam for you in their red crock, You can often turn down the dinners of the fancy.

VIII. Coarse Meal Steep your plebeian pots with Clusine porridge, So that, full, you may drink sweet new wine on an empty stomach.

IX. Lentils Take this lentil, the Nile's gift, sent from Pelusium: It is cheaper than gruel, dearer than the bean.

X. Fine Flour You could count neither the merits nor the uses of fine flour, Since it serves the baker as often as the cook.

XI. Barley Take what the muleteer would give to his uncomplaining mules. This gift I gave the innkeeper, not to you.

XII. Grain Take three hundred bushels from the Libyan tenant's harvest, So that the field by the city does not starve.

XIII. Beets To give the bland beets flavor — the dinners of workmen — How often, alas, the cook will cry for wine and pepper!

XIV. Lettuce The lettuce that used to close our grandfathers' dinners, Tell me — why does it now begin our feasts?

XV. Smokeless Firewood If the country near Nomentum is your estate, Bring your own firewood to the villa, rustic — my advice.

XVI. Turnips These turnips I give you, that rejoice in winter's frost, Romulus is wont to eat — up there in heaven.

XVII. A Bundle of Cabbage-Shoots Lest the pallid stalks turn your stomach, Let the green cabbage be greened in soda-water.

XVIII. Cut Leeks As often as you've eaten the strong-smelling threads Of Tarentine leek, give your kisses with lips sealed.

XIX. Headed Leeks Wooded Aricia sends the finest leeks: See the green hair upon the snow-white stalk.

XX. Wild Turnips The Amiternine field rears these in its happy gardens: You may eat the Nursine kind more sparingly.

XXI. Asparagus The tender shoot that grew in seaside Ravenna Will be no more pleasing than wild asparagus.

XXII. Hard-Skinned Grapes A grape unfit for cups and useless to Lyaeus, Yet to you, if you're not drinking, I'll be nectar.

XXIII. Chian Figs The Chian, like aged wine that Setia sent, Carries with it both its own liquor and its own salt.

XXIV. Quinces If quinces soaked in Attic honey Are set before you, say: "These honey-apples please me."

XXV. Pine-Nuts We are Cybele's fruit: keep your distance, traveler, Lest our downfall crash upon your luckless head.

XXVI. Service-Berries We are service-berries, binding too-loose bowels: You'll give this fruit to a boy more fittingly than to yourself.

XXVII. A Branch of Date-Palms The golden date is held out on Janus' Kalends; Yet this is wont to be a poor man's gift.

XXVIII. A Jar of Syrian Figs These that came to you packed in a twisted cone — Had the cottana been bigger, they'd have been figs.

XXIX. A Jar of Damson Plums Take plums wrinkled with the rot of foreign age: They tend to ease the burden of a costive belly.

XXX. Luna Cheese Cheese stamped with the image of Etruscan Luna Will furnish a thousand lunches for your boys.

XXXI. Vestine Cheese If you'd take a frugal breakfast without meat, This lump comes to you from the Vestine flock.

XXXII. Smoked Cheese Not every hearth, not every kind of smoke, But the cheese that has drunk Velabran smoke has flavor.

XXXIII. Trebulan Cheeses Trebula bore us; a double grace commends us, Whether we are tamed by gentle flame or by water.

XXXIV. Onion-Bulbs Since your wife is an old woman and your parts are dead, Bulbs can do nothing for you but fill your belly.

XXXV. Lucanian Sausage I, the Lucanian, come as daughter of the Picene sow: From me a welcome garland rings the snow-white gruel.

XXXVI. A Small Box of Olives This olive, brought up smuggled from the Picene presses, Both opens the feast and the same olive ends it.

XXXVII. Citrons Either these came from the leaves of the Corcyrean garden, Or these were the fruit of the Massylian dragon.

XXXVIII. Beestings What the shepherd stole, while the kids could not yet stand, From the mothers' first milk — beestings — we give.

XXXIX. A Kid The wanton beast, no friend to the green vine, Pays the price; tender as he was, he has already harmed the god.

XL. Eggs If the white flows round the saffron yolks, Let Spanish mackerel-sauce season the eggs.

XLI. A Suckling Pig Let him set before me a nursling fed on pure milk By its sluggish mother; let the rich man feed on Aetolian boar.

XLII. Cling-Stone and Stoneless Fruit We do not give you stoneless fruit and clingstones from Libyan boughs, But from Nomentan trees.

XLIII. The Same Stoneless fruit, gathered from suburban boughs, is sent, And home-grown clingstones too. What have you to do with Libya's?

XLIV. A Sow's Udder You'd think it not yet an udder: so from its generous teat It flows, and the nipple swells with living milk.

XLV. Pullets If we had Libyan birds and Phasian pheasants, You'd be getting those — but now take the fowls of the yard.

XLVI. Early Peaches We were once cheap peaches on our mother boughs: Now, grafted, we are precious peaches.

XLVII. Picentine Loaves Picentine grain so swells with snowy juice That a light sponge bloats when it takes up water.

XLVIII. Mushrooms It's easy to send silver and gold, a cloak and a toga: Mushrooms — those are hard to send.

XLIX. Fig-Peckers Since the fig feeds me, since I graze on sweet grapes, Why didn't the grape, rather, give me my name?

L. Truffles We truffles, who burst the nursing earth with our tender crown, Are the fruit second only to mushrooms.

LI. A Dozen Thrushes A garland woven of roses, perhaps, for you, or rich nard, But for me a garland made of thrushes is what pleases.

LII. Ducks Let the whole duck be served; but only in the breast And neck has it flavor: give the rest back to the cook.

LIII. Turtle-Doves When I have a fat turtle-dove, goodbye, lettuce: And keep your snails to yourself. I've no wish to spoil my appetite.

LIV. A Ham Let mine be Cerretane, or it may be one sent From the Menapii: let the elegant gorge on gammon.

LV. A Gammon It's fresh: hurry, don't keep your dear friends waiting, For with an old gammon I want nothing to do.

LVI. A Sow's Womb You, perhaps, are more taken with a maiden hog's: The mother-sow's womb, from a pregnant pig, takes me.

LVII. Egyptian Beans You'll laugh at the Nile's vegetable and its clinging strings, When you drag the troublesome threads with bite and hand.

LVIII. Goose-Liver Look how the liver swells, bigger than the big goose itself! Amazed, you'll say: "Where, I ask, did this grow?"

LIX. Dormice The whole winter through I sleep, and I am fatter At that season when nothing but sleep feeds me.

LX. Rabbits The rabbit delights to dwell in burrowed caves. He it was who showed the foe the hidden paths.

LXI. Heath-Cocks Among the flavors of birds, the taste of the Ionian Heath-cock is said to be the first.

LXII. Fattened Hens The easy hen is fed on sweet meal, And fed in the dark. The gullet is ingenious.

LXIII. Capons Lest the cock grow lean from a too-drained loins, He has lost his stones. Now he shall be a cock for me.

LXIV. The Same In vain the hen submits to her barren mate. This bird should have belonged to mother Cybele.

LXV. Partridges This bird, set out most rarely on Ausonian tables, You often watch at play in your fish-pond.

LXVI. Doves Do not wrong the tender doves with perjured tooth, If the rites of the Cnidian goddess have been entrusted to you.

LXVII. Wood-Pigeons Ringed wood-pigeons slacken and dull the loins: Let no man eat this bird who hopes to be lusty.

LXVIII. Wood-Larks The yellow-green bird is fooled by limed reeds and by nets, While the green grape, still raw, swells with its young wine.

LXIX. Marten-Skins Umbria never gave us Pannonian martens: Pudens would rather send these gifts to his mistress.

LXX. Peacocks You marvel each time it unfolds its jeweled wings — And can you, hard-hearted, hand this over to the cruel cook?

LXXI. Flamingos My red plumage gives me my name, but my tongue Is the gourmet's delight. What if my tongue could chatter?

LXXII. Pheasants I was first carried over in the Argo's hull: Before, I knew nothing but the Phasis.

LXXIII. Guinea-Fowl Though Hannibal had eaten his fill of Roman goose, The barbarian himself never ate his own native birds.

LXXIV. Geese This was the bird that saved the temple of Tarpeian Jove. You marvel? He had not yet made the bird a god.

LXXV. Cranes You'll throw your lines into disorder, the whole letter will not fly, If you lose a single one of Palamedes' birds.

LXXVI. Woodcocks Woodcock or partridge — what does it matter, if the flavor's the same? The partridge costs more. So it tastes the better.

LXXVII. Swans With failing tongue the swan tunes its sweet songs, Itself the singer of its own funeral.

LXXVIII. Purple Coots Has so small a bird the name of a great giant? And it has the name of the Green-faction's Porphyrion too.

LXXIX. Live Mullets The mullet breathes in the brought-in sea, but is sluggish now; It grows faint. Give it live water: it will be strong.

LXXX. Lampreys The great lamprey that swims in the Sicilian deep Cannot dive when its skin is scorched by the sun.

LXXXI. Turbots Though the broad dish carries a turbot, Still the turbot is broader than the dish.

LXXXII. Oysters I have just come, a shell drunk with Baian Lucrine: Now in my luxury I thirst for noble garum.

LXXXIII. Prawns The blue Liris loves us, whom Marica's wood Shelters: from there we prawns come, a vast throng.

LXXXIV. Parrot-Wrasse This parrot-wrasse, which comes half-eaten from the sea's waves, Is good in its innards; the rest tastes cheap.

LXXXV. Coracinus You are first snatched up, coracinus, in the Nile's market: No fish has higher glory for the Pellaean gullet.

LXXXVI. Sea-Urchins Though it pricks your fingers with its sharp shell, Once the rind is off, the sea-urchin will be soft.

LXXXVII. Murex-Shells Dyed with our blood, ungrateful man, you put on Your cloaks — and that's not enough: we are food as well.

LXXXVIII. Gudgeons Though banquets be lavish in the Venetian lands, The gudgeon is wont to be the start of the dinner.

LXXXIX. Bass The woolly bass takes in the mouth of Euganean Timavus, Fed on fresh waters mingled with the sea's salt.

XC. Gilt-Head Bream Not every gilt-head earns the praise and the price, But only the one whose sole food is the Lucrine shell.

XCI. Sturgeon Send the sturgeon to the Palatine tables: Let rare gifts grace the ambrosial feasts.

XCII. Hares Among birds the thrush, if my judgment counts for anything, Among four-footed beasts the hare is the first tidbit.

XCIII. Boar The bristled beast, dreaded in the Diomedean fields, That fell to the Aetolian spear — such was its kind.

XCIV. Does The boar is feared for its tusk, horns defend the stag: We unwarlike does — what are we but prey?

XCV. Oryx Not the least prey of the morning's wild beasts, The fierce oryx — how many dogs' deaths it costs me!

XCVI. Stag This was that stag tamed by your halter, Cyparissus. Or was this rather your stag, Silvia?

XCVII. The Wild-Ass Foal While the wild ass is young and the foal still grazes On its mother alone, it has this name — babyish, but brief.

XCVIII. Wild She-Goat You'll see the wild goat hanging from the cliff's height, And hope it will fall: it looks down in scorn on the dogs.

XCIX. Gazelle You'll give a pet gazelle to your little son: The crowd, tossing their togas, is wont to ask for it.

C. Wild Ass Here's a handsome wild ass: the hunt of Erythraean Tusk must be staged: now away with the curtains.

CI. Venafran Oil This the Campanian Venafrum's berry sweated for you: Whenever you take perfume, this scents it too.

CII. Allies' Garum From the first blood of the still-gasping mackerel Take the proud garum — a costly gift.

CIII. A Jar of Fish-Brine I am, I confess, the daughter of the Antibes tunny: Were I the mackerel's, I'd not have been sent to you.

CIV. Attic Honey This noble nectar was sent you by the bee That plunders the woods of Theseus' Pallas-loved Hymettus.

CV. Sicilian Honeycombs When you give Sicilian combs from the hills of central Hybla, You may call them Cecropian if you like.

CVI. Raisin-Wine The Cnossian vintage of Minoan Crete Bore you this, the mead that tends to be the poor man's drink.

CVII. Pitched Wine That this pitched wine has come from vine-bearing Vienna, Do not doubt: Romulus himself sent it to me.

CVIII. Mead You stir Attic honey into nectarous Falernian. This drink deserves to be mixed by Ganymede.

CIX. Alban This the mild vintage from Caesar's cellars sent, The vintage that pleases itself on the Julian hill.

CX. Surrentine You drink Surrentine? Take neither painted murra-ware Nor gold: these wines will give you cups of their own.

CXI. Falernian The Massic came from the presses of Sinuessa: You ask under what consul it was laid down? There was none.

CXII. Setine Setia, hanging high, that looks on the Pomptine plains, Sent these old casks from her tiny town.

CXIII. Fundan This Fundan the happy autumn of Opimius bore. The consul pressed the must and drank it himself.

CXIV. Trifoline I am not of the first rank, I admit — Trifoline Lyaeus — Yet among wines I'll be the seventh vine.

CXV. Caecuban The noble Caecuban is mellowed at Fundan Amyclae, And the vine, born in the middle of the marsh, grows green.

CXVI. Signine You'll drink Signine to bind a loose bowel? Lest it bind too much, let your thirst be sparing.

CXVII. Mamertine If Mamertine of Nestor's age be given you, It can bear whatever name you like.

CXVIII. Tarraconese Tarraco, yielding only to Campanian Lyaeus, Bore these wines that rival the Tuscan casks.

CXIX. Nomentan The Nomentan vintage gives you my Bacchus: If Quintus loves you, you'll drink something finer.

CXX. Spoletine You'd rather have the matured wine of Spoletine flasks Than drink the new Falernian must.

CXXI. Pelignian The Pelignian tenants send their muddied Marsic: Don't you drink it — let your freedman do that.

CXXII. Vinegar Don't think the jar of Nile vinegar beneath you: When it was wine, it was cheaper still.

CXXIII. Massilian When your dole strikes a hundred citizens off the list, You may set out the smoky wines of Massilia.

CXXIV. Caeretan Let Nepos serve Caeretan, you'll think it Setine. He doesn't serve the crowd: he drinks it with three friends.

CXXV. Tarentine Aulon, noble in its wools and happy in its vines, Gives precious fleeces to you, wines to me.

CXXVI. Perfume Never leave perfume or wine to your heir. Let him have the cash — give all of these to yourself.

CXXVII. Rose-Garlands Midwinter, Caesar, gives you these hurried garlands: Once the rose was spring's; now it has become yours.