Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. In fervid summer with the glowing grain,
  2. Then with green vine-shoot and the luscious bunch,
  3. And glaucous olive-tree in bitter cold.
  4. The dainty she-goat from my pasture bears
  5. Her milk-distended udders to the town:
  6. Out of my sheep-cotes ta'en the fatted lamb
  7. Sends home with silver right-hand heavily charged;
  8. And, while its mother lows, the tender calf
  9. Before the temples of the Gods must bleed.
  10. Hence of such Godhead (traveller!), stand in awe;
  11. Best it befits thee off to keep thy hands.
  12. Thy cross is ready, shaped as artless yard;
  13. 'I'm willing 'faith' (thou say'st) but 'faith here comes
  14. The boor and plucking forth with bended arm
  15. Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.
  1. This place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turf-builded cottage,
  2. Roofed with its osier-twigs and thatched with its bundles of sedges;
  3. I from the dried oak hewn and fashioned with rustical hatchet
  4. Guarding them year by year while more are they evermore thriving.
  5. For here be owners twain who greet and worship my Godship,