Kamma: Action and its fruit
Kamma is deed ripening into result. That "therefore" at the front carries the weight of everything before it: two tables were set long before anyone sat down to them, one by servants who kept faith, one by people who laid out cups for Fortune and Destiny. Hunger arrives here the way a harvest arrives, in season, out of what was planted.
Taṇhā: Craving
Taṇhā is thirst, the word itself. The cup gets filled, gets drunk, and the throat stays dry, because the drinking was never the point of the drinking. Salt water works this way, the more you take the more you want, and a loaded table changes nothing for the one sitting at it.
Peta: The hungry ghost
Petas have mouths too small for the food in front of them. Standing at a spread table and going hungry is their whole condition, and it describes a state of mind well before it describes a place. Someone can eat every course served and rise empty, still counting what was on the other plates.
Santuṭṭhi: Contentment
Santuṭṭhi is satisfaction with what has been given. The servants eat, and the eating is enough for them; they are fed because they are not measuring this meal against a bigger one somewhere else. The same bread fills the contented person and passes straight through the one who wants more.
Pīti: Gladness
Pīti is joy welling up from inside a person. Rejoicing belongs to the servants because their gladness does not ride on the next delivery arriving on time. Disappointment is what joy turns into when it was staked on an outcome and the outcome came in short: one kind of gladness travels with you, the other stands waiting by the door.