Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- 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,
- In fervid summer with the glowing grain,
- Then with green vine-shoot and the luscious bunch,
- And glaucous olive-tree in bitter cold.
- The dainty she-goat from my pasture bears
- Her milk-distended udders to the town:
- Out of my sheep-cotes ta'en the fatted lamb
- Sends home with silver right-hand heavily charged;
- And, while its mother lows, the tender calf
- Before the temples of the Gods must bleed.
- Hence of such Godhead (traveller!), stand in awe;
- Best it befits thee off to keep thy hands.
- Thy cross is ready, shaped as artless yard;
- 'I'm willing 'faith' (thou say'st) but 'faith here comes
- The boor and plucking forth with bended arm