Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- Grant that a restless swelling rouse my nerve
- Lustful a-sudden and upraise it high,
- Nor cease excite it and excite it more
- Till wanton Venus burst my weakened side.
- Neither of garden nor of blessèd vine
- But of a little holt (Priapus!) guard,
- Wherein wast born and may'st be born again;
- I warn thee plundering hand alway repel
- And keep the fuel for thy master's fire--
- An this be wanting, mind! of wood thou art.
- Roses in spring in the autumn fruits and in summer they bring me
- Wheat-ears, while to my mind winter is horrible pest;
- For that the cold I dread lest I being god made of timber
- End me as fuel for fire chopped by those ignorant boors.
- I thuswise fashioned I by rustic art
- And from dried poplar-trunk (O traveller!) hewn,
- This fieldlet, leftwards as thy glances fall,
- And my lord's cottage with his pauper garth
- Protect, repelling thieves' rapacious hands.
- In spring with vari-coloured wreaths I'm crown'd,