Pliny the Younger Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus
late 1st century · Roman Empire · He had laid on a lettuce apiece, three snails, two eggs and honeyed wine chilled with snow; his friend had gone to a house that served oysters and sea urchins
Look here! You promise to come to dinner and then do not come? Sentence is passed: you shall pay back the cost to the last penny, and it is no small sum.
Heus tu! Promittis ad cenam, nec venis? Dicitur ius: ad assem impendium reddes, nec id modicum.Letters 1.15, to Septicius Clarus
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Du Fu 杜甫
761 · Tang China · The day a visitor came to his thatched house in Chengdu
The flower path has never been swept for a guest. My wicker gate opens today, for the first time, for you. The market is far, so the dishes are plain. The house is poor, so the wine is only an old rough brew. If you are willing to drink with the old man next door, I shall call him over the fence to finish the cups with us.
花徑不曾緣客掃，蓬門今始爲君開。
盤餐市遠無兼味，樽酒家貧只舊醅。
肯與鄰翁相對飲，隔籬呼取盡餘桮。"A Guest Arrives"
Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus
c. 55 BC · Roman Republic
You will dine well at my house, my Fabullus, in a few days, if the gods are kind to you, if you bring with you a good, big dinner, and do not forget a pretty girl and wine and salt and all the laughter. Bring these, I say, my charming friend, and you will dine well; for your Catullus has a purse full of cobwebs.
Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me
paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus,
si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam
cenam, non sine candida puella
et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.
haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster,
cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli
plenus sacculus est aranearum.Poem 13
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