Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- Howe'er thou 'plain, no more shall tender boy
- Ope to thy bidding, nor on groaning bed
- His mobile buttocks writhe with aiding art:
- Nor shall the wanton damsel's legier hand
- Stroke thee, or rub on thee her lubric thigh.
- A two-fanged mistress, Romulus old remembering,
- Awaits thee; middlemost whose sable groin
- And hide time-loosened thou with coynte-rime bewrayed
- And hung in cobwebs fain shalt block the way.
- Such prize is thine who thrice and four times shalt
- Engulf thy lecherous head in fosse profound.
- Though sick or languid lie thou, still thou must
- Rasp her till wretched, wretched thou shalt fill
- Thrice or e'en fourfold times her cavernous gape;
- And naught this haughty sprite shall 'vail thee when
- Plunging thine errant head in plashing mire.
- Why lies it lazy? Doth its sloth displease thee?
- For once thou mayest weaken it unavenged;
- But when that golden boy again shall come,
- Soon as his patter on the path shalt hear,