Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Corpses by fellow-slaves were coffined in biers of the vilest.
  2. This was the common yard to ensepulchre wretched plebeians,
  3. Pantolabus the buffoon and Nomentanus the rake-hell.
  4. Frontage a thousand feet, three hundred fieldwards, a land mark
  5. Here assigned, lest the ground monumental follow the heir folk.
  6. Now 'tis salubrious made: one fives in th' Esquiliae, also
  7. Walks on the sunny mound, where erstwhile showed to folk sad-eyed
  8. Fields by bones deformed a-glistening ghostly and ghastly;
  9. Yet for me never was aught, or thieves or ferals accustomed
  10. This foul spot to behaunt, a cause of such care and such trouble