Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Thou who bidest so chaste with mind ever set upon banquets
  2. And with a futtering crew alway thy palace was filled:
  3. Then that thou learn of these which were most potent of swiving,
  4. Wont wast thou to bespeak, saying to suitors erect--
  5. 'Than my Ulysses none was better at drawing the bowstring
  6. Whether by muscles of side or by superior skill;
  7. And, as he now is deceased, do ye all draw and inform me
  8. Which of ye men be the best so that my man he become.'
  9. Thy heart, Penelope, right sure by such pow'r I had pleasèd,
  10. But at the time not yet had I been made of mankind.