Priapeia

Priaepia

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

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