Literature
In Virgil's Aeneid, trenchers are the object of a prophecy. In bk.3, Aeneas recounts to Dido how after a battle between the Trojans and the Harpies, Calaeno, chief of the Furies, prophesied to him (claiming to have the knowledge from Apollo) that he would finally arrive in Italy, but
Never shall you build your promised city
Until the injury you did us by this slaughter
Has brought you to a hunger so cruel
That you gnaw your very tables.
The prophecy is fulfilled in bk.7, when the Trojans eat the trenchers after a frugal feast. Aeneas' son Ascanius jokes that they are so hungry they would have eaten the tables, at which point Aeneas realises that the prophecy has been fulfilled. However, he reattributes the prophecy to his deceased father, Anchises:
I now can tell you, my father Anchises
Revealed these secrets to me for he said:
"When you have sailed, son, to an unknown shore
And, short of food, are driven to eat your tables,
Then, weary though you are, hope you are home
This episode is alluded to in Allen Tate's poem, "The Mediterranean", although Tate calls them "plates".
Read more about this topic: Trencher (tableware)
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