Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- And This, however gross, withouten fraud
- Stiffer than lyre-string or than twisted rope
- I'll thrust and bury to thy seventh rib.
- Oft in my speech one letter is lost; for Predicate always
- Pedicate I pronounce. Reason--a trip of the tongue!
- Matrons avoid this site, for your chaste breed
- 'Twere vile these verses impudique to read.
- They still come on and not a doit they heed!
- O'ermuch these matrons know and they regard
- With willing glances this my vasty yard.
- 'Why be my parts obscene displayed without cover?' thou askest:
- Ask I wherefore no God careth his sign to conceal?
- Wieldeth the Lord of the World his thunderbolt ever unhidden,
- Nor is trident a-sheath given to the Watery God: