Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK ELEVEN
LII
TO JULIUS CERIALIS
COME, Julius, share a pleasant meal with me,
If you should have no better occupation,
(We'll bathe together-keep the eighth hour free,
You know the bath adjoins my habitation),
Sliced leeks and wholesome lettuce there will be,
And tunny fry in happy combination
With rue and sauce of egg-I like it well
When rather larger than a mackerel.
Eggs also, poached upon a slack-wood fire,
Picenian olives touched by frost but lightly,
These first. Shall I tell more?-in my desire
To bring you, pardon my romancing slightly;
My fish, birds, game, a gourmet might inspire,
A Stella's table does not see them nightly;
No verse I'll read but you shall give me all
Your epic and Virgilian pastoral.
LIII
ON CLA UDIA RUFINA
THOUGH from the painted Britons Claudia came,
Her noble soul befits the Roman race,
Her kinship dames of Italy might claim,
Greeks laud her beauty; and by heaven's grace
Offspring she hath; so ere her lovely face
Hath lost its youth, they too shall wed, and she
Loving her lord, in him shall ever place
Her trust, rejoicing in her children three.
LIV
TO ZOILUS
You snatched that half-burned incense from the fire,
Stole cinnamon and nard from bier and pyre,
Your myrrh and cassia have tainted breath.
Restore, polluted knave, your spoils to Death;
Small wonder that your hands have learned to cheat;
Slave, runaway, they learned it from your feet.
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