According to one account Rimbaud
mocked Verlaine from their upstairs window
as the latter returned home with a fish for supper.
Among biographers it is customary to conclude
that Gérard de Nerval never recovered
from unrequited love for his dead mother.
And it was said that Clodius Albinus could consume
500 dried figs, 100 peaches, ten melons, twenty
pounds of grapes, as well as 100 small birds
and 400 oysters for dinner.
It is widely supposed that thumbs-down
spelt the end of a gladiator.
However, evidence suggests
that a thumbs-up was the terminator.
There is no evidence that
feasting Romans had a vomitorium.
Gérard’s father, Doctor Labrunie,
may have been an equal problem.
But the court records that Verlaine shot
Rimbaud and was locked up in Belgium
where he had fled after a spat
over a London herring.