Priapeia

Priaepia

by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers

  1. Add that a godhead terrible of staff
  2. Hewed me the rustic's rude unartful hand
  3. And made me vilest of all deities,
  4. Invoked as wooden guardian of the gourds.
  5. And more, for shameless note to me was 'signed
  6. With lustful nerve a pyramid distent,
  7. Whereto a damsel (whom well nigh I'd named)
  8. Is with her fornicator wont to come
  9. And save in every mode Philaenis tells
  10. Futtered, in furious lust her way she wends.
  1. One than a goose's marrow softer far,
  2. Comes hither stealing for its penalty's sake:
  3. Steal he as please him: I will see him not.
  1. This, with his snout aye alert to uproot the lilies a-blowing,
  2. Slain for thy victim 's the pig bred in the stye's tepid reek.
  3. But, an thy will be not to murther the herd, O Priapus,
  4. Grant of thy grace yon gate into the garden be shut.
  1. Thou, who lest manly mark thy glances meet,
  2. Hence fain avertest thee as suits the pure;
  3. No wonder 'twere if that to see thou fear'st