feast

feast your eyes on gaze at with pleasure.

feast of reason intellectual talk.

☞ This expression comes from the poet Alexander Pope's description of congenial conversation in Imitations of Horace: 'The feast of reason and the flow of soul'.

feast or famine either too much of something or too little.

a ghost (or spectre) at the feast someone or something that brings gloom or sadness to an otherwise pleasant or celebratory occasion.

☞ The ghost or spectre of Banquo at the feast in Shakespeare's Macbeth is the most famous literary instance of this. There are other versions of the expression. A skeleton at the feast dates from the mid 19th century and probably refers to the ancient Egyptian practice of having the coffin of a dead person, adorned with a painted portrait of the deceased, present at a funeral banquet. A death's head at the feast alludes to the use of a death's head or skull as a memento mori (an object which serves as a reminder of death).

a movable feast an event which takes place at no regular time.

☞ In a religious context a movable feast is a feast day (especially Easter Day and the other Christian holy days whose dates are related to it) which does not occur on the same calendar date each year.