Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- Nor am I floggèd by the hailstone hard,
- Nor yet my burgeon-gems a-budding new
- Are burnt by rigours of a wintry spring:
- Neither the winds nor rains nor yet the droughts
- Caused just complaining to the apple-tree;
- Nor me the starling or the robber 'Daw
- Or crow as crone old-grown or watery goose
- Or thirsty raven e'er endamagèd.
- No! but from bearing scribblers' rubbish verse
- On labouring branches comes mine every woe.
- Sleep, O ye watchdogs! safe, while aid in guarding the garden
- Lover his leman beloved, Seirius Erigone.
- 'Tis not enough, my friends, I set my seat
- Where earth gapes chinky under Canicule,
- Ever enduring thirsty summer's drought.
- 'Tis not enough the showers flow down my breast
- And beat the hail-storms on my naked hair,
- With beard fast frozen, rigid by the rime.
- 'Tis not enough that days in labour spent
- Sleepless I lengthen through the nights as long.