Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- Lyre of the stiff taut string, stiffer the string of himself.
- Ilias, noble poem, was gotten and born of such direful
- Ire, of that Sacred Song such was original cause.
- Matter of different kind was the wander of crafty Ulysses:
- An thou would verity know Love too was motor of this.
- Hence does he gather the root whence springs that aureate blossom
- Which whenas 'Moly' hight, 'Moly' but 'Mentula' means.
- Here too of Circe we read and Calypso, daughter of Atlas,
- Bearing the mighty commands dealt by Dulichian Brave
- Whom did Alcinous' maiden admire by cause of his member
- For with a leafy branch hardly that yard could be dad.
- Yet was he hasting, his way to regain his little old woman:
- Thy coynte (Penelope!) claiming his every thought;
- Thou who bidest so chaste with mind ever set upon banquets
- And with a futtering crew alway thy palace was filled:
- Then that thou learn of these which were most potent of swiving,
- Wont wast thou to bespeak, saying to suitors erect--
- 'Than my Ulysses none was better at drawing the bowstring
- Whether by muscles of side or by superior skill;
- And, as he now is deceased, do ye all draw and inform me