Beer
This poem has a ton of stuff to say about beer. A ton. It starts out just being something the characters are drinking, but as things go on it turns into a big symbol for temporary pleasure and the...
The Dead Cow
The dead cow is the central image in the first speaker's complaint about poetry. Sick of hearing sad poems, he makes up this little parody of a pointless melancholy poem. A dead cow would norm...
Ludlow Fair
The fair at Ludlow, England would have been a gathering where people from the area could meet to do business, hang out, and drink a ton. Like a lot of other things in this poem, though, it's also a...
The Lovely Muck
This is a great image of how deceptive the pleasure of drinking can be. Sure, Terence says, you're so happy when you're drunk that even muck looks lovely. Is that real happiness, though? Lovely muc...
King Mithridates
For Terence, Mithridates represents the true "wise man" (47). Rather than pretending that everything is great, he sees the world for what it is. He knows danger and sadness is all around, and he ge...
Poison
The whole last stanza of this poem is about a fiendish plot to poison King Mithridates. We don't learn anything about why they want him dead, but we get plenty of images of the attempted poisoning...