Priapeia

If a woman, man, or boy, thieve from me, let her coynte, his mouth, the latter's buttocks, be submitted [to my mentule].

Whoever shall herein pluck a violet or a rose, or pilfer vegetables or unbought apples, I pray that in the absence of both woman and boy he may continually burst with that rigid tension which you see in me, and that his mentule may in vain beat throbbing on his navel

The steward has bidden me, the protector of this fertile garden, have a care of the place committed to my charge. Thou, O thief, shalt be punished; thou mayst be enraged, and say, 'On account of a cabbage am I to endure this? On account of a cabbage?'[*]( Some read prope, meaning near--'Am I to be sodomised near a cabbage?' instead of propter, meaning on account of. Because, it is presumed, the thief thought a cabbage plot too open a space for such a punishment.)

This staff of office, which, severed from the tree, can now shoot forth no verdure; sceptre, which pathic maidens crave, and some kings love to hold; to which patrician[*]( 'Patrician' and 'notorious' are alternative renderings of 'the Latin word oscula.) paederasts give kisses; shall go right into the very bowels of the thief, as far as the hair and the bag of balls.[*]( The whole of Priapus's member to the very hair of the pudendum and the scrotum would be thrust into the thief.)

Hither! ye Romans' Either lop off my seminal member, which the neighbouring women, ever itching with desire, exhaust the whole night through[*]( Either the women exhausted Priapus with their mouths or by riding upon him.)--more lecherous than sparrows in the spring[*]( Scioppius recounts having seen sparrows in spring copulate so many times in succession that, when trying to fly away, they fell to the ground exhausted.)--or I shall be ruptured (for where is the limit of their lust?), nor will ye have a Priapus. Ye see that I am spent with venery, jaded, thin and pale, who once, ruddy and vigorous, used to thrust through the stoutest thieves. My strength has faded me; and, wretched with coughing, I spit out noxious saliva.[*]( In connection with this epigram may be mentioned the practice of tribadism with phalli amongst the Roman ladies. Giraldus tells us that the Lesbian women used dildoes made of glass, ivory, gold and silken stuffs and linen to satisfy their lechery. Suidas and Aristophanes speak of the use by Milesian women of a leathern penis succedaneum, called olisbos. Martial and Suetonius hint at the use of a snake for a similar purpose. Petronius makes Oenothea introduce a leathern fascinum, smeared with oil, pepper and crushed nettle seeds, into the anus of Encolpius as an aphrodisiac.)

Quinctia, the people's darling, renowned in the Great Circus, cunning to flirt her tremulous buttocks to and fro, the cymbals and the castanet, the weapons of wantonness,[*]( So called because the songs and dances to which the cymbals and castanets were accompaniments were of a loose and wanton character, inciting the spectators to venery.) dedicates to Priapus, and the tambour, struck by the hand towards her drawn. And she prays for them, that she may always find favour with her spectators; and that her crowd of admirers may be 'rigid'[*]( This was looked on as a mark of the dancer's success in arousing the spectators' passions by her lascivious movements and postures.), after the manner of the god.

Thou who wickedly designest, and scarce forbearest from robbing my garden, shall be sodomised with my twelve-inch fascinum [phallus]. But if so severe and unpleasant a punishment shall not avail., I will strike higher

May I die,[*]( A favourite formula of oath amongst the Romans.) Priapus, if I do not blush to make use of lewd and impure words; but when you, a deity without shame, display to me your balls in all openness, I must call a tool a tool, a coynte a coynte.

Priapus, terrific with thy sickle and thy greater part, tell me, prithee, which is the way to the fountain?[*]( Scaliger says that figures of Priapus and of Mercury were placed at crossroads, with rods in their hands, pointing out the way to fountains. 'The figure of Hermes had, like that of Priapus, a long and massive phallus; I have seen them in a cardinal's palace at Rome; and another proof is the saying of the philosophers, who, deriding the gluttony and lust of the youths, compared them to tois ermais [statues of Mercury)

Haste thee through these vines, for if thou hast plucked off their clustering grapes, guest! thou wilt take the water for another purpose

So long as thou snatchest nothing from me with audacious hand, thou mayst be chaster than Vesta herself. But, if thou dost, these belly-weapons of mine will so stretch thee that thou wilt be able to slip through thy own anus.

Girl, more meagre than dried grapes,[*]( This is reminiscent of an epigram by Catullus against Furius, in which he describes him as having a body more dried than horn by extreme poverty; adding, 'Sweat, saliva, mucus and nasal snivelling, all these are absent from thee. Add to this cleanliness the still greater cleanliness that thy buttocks are purer than a salt-cellar. Thou does not cack ten times in the whole of the year, and then it is harder than a bean or than pebbles, so that if thou rubbest and crumblest it in thy hands thou canst never dirty a finger.') more dusky-white than boxwood or unsullied wax; who makes the ants congregated on her body and members seem corpulent; whose bowels the Etruscan soothsayer could without opening see through the skin; who, like pumice, has no sap, insomuch as no one has seen her sputter; who, physicians think, has sand for blood, and in her veins sawdust--[this girl] is wont to come to me in the night, and approaches me, wan, attenuate and ghostlike, whilst I, as an insular iron-worker scrapes,[*]( Islands abound in metals, hence convicts in ancient times were transported to work on them.) seem to be rubbing in the horn of a lantern.[*]( Here used in a jocular comparison of the girl's parts with the horn of a lantern for hardness and dryness in coition.)

Of old, the Priapi enjoyed the Naiads and Dryads, and there was the wherewithal to cause the swollen vein of the God to droop. Now there is naught of this; moreover, I am so full of desire that I think the whole of the Nymphs have perished. 'Tis doubtless an unseemly thing to do, but lest I burst with the excessive tension [of my member], my hand, the sickle laid aside, shall become my mistress

At a sacrifice made to the God of Lechery, a girl was cheaply hired as sufficient for the wants of the common weal, who as many men she spent in a single night, dedicates to thee so many willow-wood pokers.[*]( In the original Latin verpa, meaning the virile member. So called from its similarity in shape to the instrument used in scouring furnace fires. The damsel laid on the altar of Priapus, as ex-votos, a quantity of wooden members equal in number to the men with whom she had had connection in a single night. This seems to have been a customary practice amongst the lower classes of women.Juvenal relates how the Empress Messalina was accustomed in disguise to visit a brothel at night, and borrowing her cell from Lycisca, one of the courtesans, to show such capability for the work that she exhausted all who cared to visit her, and returned to the palace in the early morning, still raging with unsatisfied lust. It is said that within twenty hours she surpassed the above-named courtesan by twenty-five 'rides'.)

Thou shalt be bardashed,[*]( Bardache, meaning a catamite. Italian bardascia, from the Arabic baradaj, a captive, a slave. The old English was ingle or yngle (a bardachio, a catamite, a boy kept for sodomy). In Latin Bulgarus means a Bulgarian or a heretic, from which our vulgar modern word 'bugger' is derived, as is the Italian bugiardo and the French bougre.) thief, for the first theft; and if twice caught, I will irrumate thee. But if thou shalt attempt a third theft, that thou mayst suffer penalties twain, I will both sodomise and irrumate thee.

We have each distinguishing features in the formation of our bodies: in Phoebus 'tis luxuriant locks, in Hercules muscular power; and the effeminate Bacchus has the figure of a girl. Minerva's eye is light in colour, Venus's prettily blinking. You see the forehead of the Arcadian Fauns rubicund with colour. The messenger of the gods, [Mercury] has shapely feet, the guardian of Lemnos walks with an uneven step [the lame Vulcan] and Aesculapius always wears a never shaven beard. No man is more broad-chested than the warlike Mars; but if 'mid this array there remain any place for me, than Priapus no Deity hath a larger or better-hung mentule

You ask why the instrument of procreation has been painted on the memorable tablet. When by accident I had bruised my penis, and wretched with suffering, dreaded the hand of the surgeon (moreover I was afraid to give the cure of my mentule to the legitimate and almighty gods, such as Phoebus, for instance, and Phoebus's son),[*]( Phoebus was the god of the healing art. Aesculapius was his son.) 'Help, O Priapus,' quoth I, 'help thou the part whose very counterpart, O Sire, thou seemest; and if thou shalt restore it safely to health without amputation,[*]( Reminding one of Don Juan's healthy horror when they proposed to circumcise him.) I will consecrate to thee, painted on a tablet, a very facsimile of it, alike in size, shape and colour! 'The God promised; for nod bobbed his mentule;[*]( Parodying the majestic nod of Jupiter when grating a request.) and has granted my prayer.

Since my nature[*]( In the original Latin, natura, punningly used in the double sense 'native character' and 'privy part'.) is always open, it behoves me to say to thee--whate'er it is--frankly. I wish to pedicate; thou wishest to pluck apples. What I desire, if thou wilt give: what thou desirest, thou shalt receive.

Mercury has a pleasing form, Apollo's is eminent for its beauty; Lyaeus too is painted of comely figure; Cupid is handsomest of all. My figure is, I confess, wanting in beauty, but my mentule is, in truth, magnificent; and if there be a girl with a sensible coynte, she had rather have that for herself than all the former gods

Telethusa, notorious amongst the damsels of the Via Subura,[*]( The Via Subura was a street in Rome, in the second region, under the eastern wall of the Carinae, at the foot of the Coelian Hill, where provisions were chiefly sold, and where many thieves and prostitutes dwelt. Martial writes, of Subura: 'Then hand over the tyro to a Suburan mistress in the art. She will make a man of him; but a virgin is an inexperienced teacher.' And: 'A young lady of not over good reputation, such as sit in the middle of the Subura.') who, I believe, has bought her freedom with the profits of prostitution,[*]( For the female slaves to gain their freedom by prostitution was not uncommon. Plautus writes: 'You will speedily be free if you will often lie on your dowry in the same manner. Plautus attributes this to the Tuscans, Augustus to the Phoenicians, Justinus to the Cyprians and Strabo to the Armenians. Herodotus under Clio states that the women of Lydia prostituted themselves to obtain their marriage portion, and that it was a custom amongst the Babylonians that every woman should once in her life prostitute herself at the temple of Venus to a stranger. This practice is confirmed by Jeremiah and Strabo; The prostitution of women, considered as a religious institution, was not only practised in Babylon, but at Heliopolis; at Aphace, a place betwixt Heliopolis and Biblus; at Sicca Veneria, in Africa, and also on the Isle of Cyprus. It was at Aphace that Venus was supposed, according to the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, to have first received the embraces of Adonis. At Argalae, in Africa, women were prostituted on the wedding night. The Loricans, when hard pressed in war, vowed to offer up their daughters to be deflowered in a festival in honour of Venus, if they should be victorious. The Marquis de Sade in his priapistic book La Philsophie dans le Boudoir states Babylonian children were deflowered at the temple of Venus at an early age; and gives some curious details on the subject of prostitution in Pegu and Tartary.) encircles thy penis, O venerable one, with a golden crown, for these pathic women consider it equal in eminence to a god.