Priapeia

Whoever comes hither let him become a poet and dedicate to me jocose verses. He who does not, shall, teeming with piles,[*]( Piles were a frequent result of sodomy. The word ficus means primarily a fig, and piles were so called from their resemblance in shape to that fruit.) walk amongst learned poets.

The steward Aristagoras, rejoicing in his promising grapes, offers to thee, O God, apples formed from wax. Do thou, O Priapus, contented with the semblance of a votive apple, cause him to bear genuine fruit

Think not that everything I say is spoken in jest and for my own amusement. That ye may not be in doubt, I tell ye this, that all thieves who are often caught I shall irrumate.

What dost thou say this spear, although I be wooden, is wishing, if any girl give kisses to my middle? It needs no soothsayer, for, believe me, she has said, 'The rude spear will exercise its true functions on me.

When the Rigid God beheld an effeminate crisping his hair with the heated curling-irons, to liken himself to a Moorish damsel, 'Ho there, thou catamite,' quoth he. 'We tell thee, thou mayst crisp and curl to thy liking, but is a girl, prithee, of more value than are the hairs which deck thy mentule?'[*]( Is it worthwhile disturbing a hair even on thy mentule, much less thy head, to take the semblance of a girl?)

O Damsel, no fairer-skinned than the Moor, but limper than any catamite, briefer in stature than the Pygmies timorous of the crane, harsher in aspect and shaggier than a she-bear, roomier [in thy vulva] than the trousers of the Medes and Indians, thou mayst tarry here or depart at thy will. For, though I may seem fully equipped, 'twould be the work of ten handfuls of rockets* to [induce me to] scrub through the ditches 'twixt thy thighs, and bethwack the worms swarming in thy coynte!

Whichever of you, who, coming to my banquet, abstains from inscribing to me any verses, I pray that his wife or mistress may make languid his rival with lascivious sporting, whilst he himself sleeps alone through the weary night, excited by lustful rockets.[*]( Rocket which he had eaten at supper.)

Altho' you see that part of me to be wet by which I'm signified to be Priapus, 'tis not dew, believe me, nor hoarfrost, but what is wont to gush forth spontaneously when my mind recalls a pathic girl [catamite]

Thou who seest the walls of my temple covered round with jocose poems, not too chaste, cease to be shocked at the obscene verses: mine is not a mentule with raised eyebrow

If it like thee, O Priapus, a certain girl, most sorely troubled with the piles, sports with me, and neither gives me nor denies her favours, but hitherto has found pretexts for deferring. If it shall to my lot to enjoy her, we will encircle the whole of thy mentule, O Priapus, with our twin garlands

What is this? Or wherefore do I suspect the greatest number of thieves to come into my garden, when everyone of them who happens unexpectedly upon me pays the penalty and is excavated up to his undulating loins? The fig tree here is no better than my neighbour is, nor are the grapes such as golden-haired Arete[*]( The wife of Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians.) gathered; nor are the apples meet to be the produce of the trees of Picenum. Neither is the pear, which at such hazard you try to pilfer; nor the plum, more mellow in colour than new wax, nor the service-apple which stays slippery stomachs. Neither do my branches yield an excellent mulberry, the oblong nut, hight filbert, nor the almond bright with purple blossom. I do not, more gluttonously, grow divers kind of cabbage and beet, larger than any other garden trains, and the scallion with its ever-growing head; nor think I that any come for the seed-abounding gourd, the clover, the cucumbers extended along the soil, or the dwarfish lettuce. Nor that any bear away in the night-time lust-exciting rockets, and fragrant mint with healthy rue, pungent onions and fibrous garlic. All of which, though enclosed within my hedgerow, grow with no sparser measure in the neighbouring garden, which having left, ye come to the place which I cultivate, O most vile thieves. Without doubt, ye flock to the open punishment,[*]( So called because the natural parts of Priapus were always exposed to view.) and the very thing with which I threaten, allures you.[*]( The thieves came for the pleasure of being sodomised, instead of looking on it as a punishment.)

Hark ye, thou who scarcely withholdest thy greedy hand from the garden entrusted to me. Now, first the watchman, full of lechery, with alternate entrance and exit, shall make thy passage an open one. Then two shall approach, who stand guard at each side, nobly provided with pensile property. Who, when they have grievously ploughed thee, stretched prostrate, to the same part shall come a rampant little ass, by no means inferior in well-hung pizzle. Wherefore, he who is wise will beware of ill-doing, when he knows that here is so much of the mentule

Bacchus is wont to be content with a modest cluster from the vine, even when the deep vats can barely contain the must. And when the spacious threshing floors are insufficient for the rich harvest, in Ceres' locks a single garland is wreathed. Do thou also, less potent deity, guided by their greater example, although our offering be only a few apples, take it in good part

If thou writest E and D then addest a joining line, that which wishes to cleave through the middle of D [thee] will be represented.[*]( If you write the letters E D and place a dash between them, thus E-D, a mentule will be represented, which wishes to cleave through the middle of D. The ambiguity is in writing the letter D, instead of the Latin word Te (thee), in the second verse. The shape of the mentule is not strikingly apparent at first sight, but the top and bottom strokes of the letter E may be taken as forming the testicles, whilst the middle stroke of the E, continued by the dash thus E-, represents the mentule itself. The D (Te) stands for the anus to be cleaved by the mentule.)

Who could believe ('tis a shameful confession!) that the thieves have even purloined the sickle from my very fingers? nor do the disgrace and loss so much affect me as the well-grounded fears of losing other weapons. Which if I lose, I shall be expatriated; and he formerly thy citizen, O Lampsacus, will become a Gaul.[*]( The word Gallus means one born in Gaul, and also an emasculated priest of Cybele. Therefore, were the thieves to steal Priapus's phallus, which was often used as a cudgel against garden robbers, he would become a Gallus. Martial relates that a Tuscan soothsayer whilst sacrificing a goat to Bacchus ordered a rustic who was assisting him to castrate the animal. The haruspex, busily intent on cutting the goat's throat, exposed to his assistant's view an immense hernia of his own, which the countryman seized and cut off by mistake, thus converting the Tuscan into a Gaul (Gallus). The priests of Cybele (who were all castrated) were called Galli from Gallus, a river in Phrygia, which turned to madness those who drank of its waters.)

Thou also mockest, O thief, and when threatened, dost stretch out to me the indecent finger Alas, unhappy I! that the thing is but wood which makes me seem fearsome. But no matter, I will charge the lecherous owner of the garden that he may be willing to irrumate the thieves for me.

An old crow, a thing of decay, a very sepulchre, grown rotten through the lapse of generations, who perchance might have been the wet-nurse of Tithonus, of Priam, and of Nestor, or who was an old woman maybe when they were boys, beseeches me that a futterer may not be wanting to her. How if she were now to pray that she may become a girl again? Nevertheless if she hath- money, she is a girl.[*]( Suggesting she may obtain a lover if she will pay for him. Martial writes,'Lesbia swears that she has never been futtered gratis. It is true: for when shewants to futter, she is wont to pay.' And,Wouldst thou be wimbled gratis when thou artA wrinkled wretch deformed in every part?O 'tis a thing more than ridiculous:To take a man's full sum, and not pay Use!)

Whatever thief who deceives my faith may he wither away, far from the buttocks of a catamite. And whatso girl who with audacious hand plucks off these apples, may she meet with no futterer

Know this, lest thou shouldst deny being warned, if thou comest a thief thou wilt go dishonoured

1. If as many verses so many apples thou hast dedicated to
2. thee, O Priapus, thou wilt be richer than of yore Alcinous.