Letter 7002: Nectar, wine, food, clothing, learning, resources —
To Gogo, When He Invited Me to Dinner
Nectar, wine, food, clothing, learning, resources —
with your lavish gifts, Gogo, you are enough for me.
You are a flowing Cicero, you are our own Apicius:
you satisfy me with words on one side, and feed me with food on the other.
But grant me pardon now: I rest with my belly swelling from beef,
for a war breaks out in the stomach if mixed meat rumbles.
Here, where the ox reclines, I think the chicken and goose will flee:
the fury of horns and wings will not be equally matched.
And now I close my drowsy eyes in sleep —
for my sluggish verses prove that sleep is master.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
II
Ad eundem cum me rogaret ad cenam
Nectar vina cibus vestis doctrina facultas –
muneribus largis tu mihi, Gogo, sat es;
tu refluus Cicero, tu noster Apicius extas:
hinc satias verbis, pascis et inde cibis.
sed modo da veniam: bubla turgente quiesco,
nam fit lis uteri, si caro mixta fremat.
hic, ubi bos recubat, fugiet puto pullus et anser:
cornibus et pinnis non furor aequus erit.
et modo iam somno languentia lumina claudo:
nam dormire meum carmina lenta probant.
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