Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- 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
- Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.
- This place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turf-builded cottage,
- Roofed with its osier-twigs and thatched with its bundles of sedges;
- I from the dried oak hewn and fashioned with rustical hatchet
- Guarding them year by year while more are they evermore thriving.
- For here be owners twain who greet and worship my Godship,