Reading Martial

When I’m invited to dinner
these days, I don’t get paid
the way I used to. So why
don’t you serve me the same dinner
you eat? You get oysters, fattened
in Lake Lucrine. I cut my mouth
sucking a mussel from its shell.
Mushrooms for you. Pig’s fungus
for me. You’re busy with turbot,
I with brill. You stuff yourself
with a golden turtle dove’s
fat rump. I’m served a magpie
that died in its cage. Why is it,
Ponticus, when I dine with you,
I dine alone? Now the dole’s gone,
you owe me the courtesy
of letting me share your dinner.

Martialis, Epigram lx, Book III
. . . . .