Marcus Valerius Martialis - The Market Is My Garden lyrics

Cackling barnyard birds, eggs of the same, golden lightly-dried Chian figs, baby offspring of a bleating goat, olives too young to bear winter, parsnip just tinged with early frost — do you think they all came in from my farm? How sweet of you to make that mistake, Regulus! My bit of land sends nothing to Rome except me. Whatever you get from your farm manager and your tenant farmer in Umbria, and from your market garden just out by the third milestone, and from the Tuscans and the Tusculans, I have the whole Suburra supplying me. Martial, Epigrams 7.31. Translation published in Andrew Dalby, Empire of Pleasures (Routledge, 2000) pp. 27-28 Raucae chortis aves et ova matrum Et flavas medio vapore Chias Et fetum querulae rudem capellae Nec iam frigoribus pares olivas Et canum gelidis holus pruinis De nostro tibi missa rure credis? O quam, Regule, diligenter erras! Nil nostri, nisi me, ferunt agelli. Quidquid vilicus Umber aut colonus Aut rus marmore tertio notatum Aut Tusci tibi Tusculive mittunt, Id tota mihi nascitur Subura.