Priapeia

Why dost thou vainly complain, O husbandman, that I, once a well-fruited apple tree, have now remained sterile throughout two autumns? 'Tis not old age, as thou imaginest, which tells upon me; nor have I been beaten by a violent hailstorm; nor has an unseasonable wintry blast nipped off the blossoms just breaking forth from the stem. Neither have winds, nor rain, nor droughts, given the apple tree any cause to murmur. The starling, the plundering 'daw, the old crow, the water-loving goose, the thirsty raven, none of these has injured me; but the verses of the most execrable of poetasters which I bear on my grievously overladen branches

Sleep dogs in safety: Sirius will watch over the garden with his beloved Erigone.[*]( Sirius, the Dog Star, Erigone, the constellation Virgo. Icarus, the father of Erigone, having been slain by some intoxicated shepherds, his dog Maera, returning home, drew his daughter by her robe to where her father lay. She hanged herself for grief, and the dog perished of hunger. In compassion, Bacchus raised them to the sides, calling Icarus by the name of Boötes; Erigone the Virgin; and Maera, Canicula, Sirius, 'the Dog Star' or Procyon.)

'Tis not enough, O friends, that I have fixed my abode here, where the earth gapes into chinks through the heat of the dog days, and that I daily endure the summer's drought; 'tis not enough that the rains flow down my bosom, that hail-storms beat amongst my bared locks, and that my beard frozen together is stiffened by the ice: 'tis too little that having spent the day in labour, I protract it, sleepless, through a night equally long. Add to this, that the unskilled hands of a rustic have chopped me, the awe-inspiring god with a cudgel, and that, amongst all the gods the lowest deity, I am called the wooden guardian of gourds. A pyramid [the virile member] stretched forth with libidinous vigour joins to these the symbol of shamelessness. Hither a damsel (I had almost added her name) is wont to come with her futterer: who if as many forms as Philaenis narrates she does not experience, she departs raging with unsated lust

A certain one, more tender than the marrow of a goose, comes hither thieving for love of the punishment. He may steal when he fists, I shall not see him

This pig, which has crushed the rising lilies with his snout, is sacrificed to thee--a victim warm from the stye. But lest thou shouldst cause the whole herd to be annihilated, O Priapus, bid the gate of thy garden to be closed.[*]( The priestesses of Priapus were sometimes represented in marble sculptures as clothed with hides of swine.)

Thou who, lest thou behold the virile sip, hence withdrawest, as becomes a maiden of modesty: forsooth, unless what thou fearest to see, in thy bowels to have thou longest

Let the first syllable of PEnelope be followed by the first of DIdo, the first of CAmus by that of REmus.[*]( PE-DI-CA-RE--pedicare, meaning to sodomise.) What is made from these thou to me, when caught in my garden, O thief, shalt give; by this punishment thy fault is atoned for.

If I, a rustic, shall seem to say anything unlearnedly, pardon me: I gather not knowledge from books, I gather apples. But, untaught, I have often listened to my master, who constantly reads here, and have learnt by heart the Homeric vocabulary. He calls psolen [the virile member], what we call psoloenta. What we call culum [the fundament], he culeon. And surely, unless an unclean thing be called smerdalos [merde], the mentule of a sodomist is smerdalea

What? had not the Trojan mentule gladdened the Spartan coynte he would have had no theme for his song.[*]( Had not Helen eloped with Paris, Homer would not have written the Iliad. Priapus means that sexual love was the cause of the Trojan War. Horace writes--'For before Helen's time [many) If the mentule of the descendant of Tantalus[*]( Agamemnon was the great-grandson of Tantalus.) had not been of renown, the aged Chryses would have had naught of complaint. The same [mentule] deprived his ally of a tender mistress,[*]( In the Trojan War the Greeks, having sacked some of the neighbouring towns and taken captive two beautiful maidens, Chryseis and Briseis, allotted the former to Agamemnon and the latter to Achilles. Chryses, priest of Apollo and father of Chryseis, on being refused his daughter's ransom, invoked a pestilence on the Greeks. Agamemnon was thus compelled to deliver up his captive, but in revenge he seized on Briseis, his comrade Achilles' prize. Achilles, in discontent, thereupon withdrew himself and his forces from the rest of the Greeks.) and she whom the grandson of Achilles possessed it desired for itself. Achilles chaunted his woeful dirge to the strains of the Pelethronian lyre, himself more 'rigid' than its strings. His ire, thus aroused, verily unfolds the famous Iliad: this was the origin of that immortal poem. The subject of the other [the Odyssey] is the wandering of the crafty Ulysses. If you would know the truth, love inspired this also. Hence is given [to Ulysses] a root from which a golden blossom springs: which, when called moly [by Homer], moly means mentule.[*]( The moly was a fabulous herb said by Homer to have been given by Mercury to Ulysses, as a counter-charm against the spells of the enchantress Circe. According to the writer of this epigram, however, the charm simply consisted in the persuasive powers of Ulysses' mentule, through whose means he subjugated both Circe and Calypso.) Whence we read that Circe and Calypso, daughter of Atlas, bore children by the mighty implement of the Dulichian hero; and the daughter of Alcinous [Nausicaa] marvelled that his member could scarcely be covered by a leafy branch. Yet he hastened to his little old woman, and all his thoughts were centred in thy coynte, Penelope. Thou who keepest so chaste that in the meantime thou givest banquets and thine house is filled with futterers. And, that of these thou might'st ascertain which wight was the most vigorous, with these words spoken, thou art asking the nerve-extended crew: 'No man stretched his bow-string[*]( Parodying the well-known episode of the slaying of the suitors. By a play upon words nervum is here used in the double sense of 'bow-string' and 'mentule'. Apuleius in his Metamorphoses gives the following description of an amorous encounter between Lucius and Fotis--Again and again we pledged each other, until I, now flushed with wine, restless in mind as in body, and moreover wanton with desire (even slightly wounded on the top of my inguinal organ), having removed my garment, showed to Fotus the impatience of my longing.'Pity me,' I cried, 'and speedily relieve me! For, as you perceive, since I received the first of cruel Cupid's arrows buried in my very vitals I have been intent upon the contest, now eagerly approaching, which you had proclaimed for us, without the intervention of a herald. Look at my bow! its very vigour stretches it, and fearfulness for the battle, [and I dread) better than my Ulysses, whether 'twas by reason of his side-muscles or of his skill. Who being dead, do ye now stretch forth yours. Thus shall I see if there be a man like unto him; that that man be mine.' With such a treaty, I could have Pleased thee, Penelope: but at that time I was not yet made.

When the sweetness of the fig shall come into thy mind and thou shalt long to stretch forth thine hand hither, glance mindfully on me, O thief, and calculate what weight of mentule will be voided by thee

A stranger of small means has made me a laughing stock. He had offered up the libum [a cake], strown with spelt and mingled salt, and, having scattered portions on the fire, straightway departed hence, his offering finished. Thereupon comes hither a neighbour's dog, having, I dare say, made for the fumes of smoke; which animal, having devoured the whole of the libation to the mentule, makes atonement to me by its 'rigidity' through the whole night. But do ye be wary of making any more offerings on this spot lest a pack of starving hounds hasten towards me; and lest, in worshipping me and my power, ye have your custodians irrumated.[*]( By such conduct the very watchdogs will be turned into thieves and punished as such by the god.)

If thou pilferest the orchards entrusted to my care, that I grieve to lose pleasurable things thou wilt be taught

O Priapus, faithful protector of orchards, warn off the thieves with thy red-painted amulet

I am inflexible; if thou shalt steal my large apples, I will give thee the apples of the breeches[*]( Apples meaning testicles.)

With sidelong glances, O pathic girls, why look ye on me? My mentule stands not erect from my groin. Although 'tis now vigourless and unserviceable wood, 'twill be of use if ye sacrifice at my altar

Through the middles of lads and girls will my mentule make its way; those bearded 'twill not attack save at the height.

Dodona is sacred to thee, O Jupiter; Samos and Mycenae to Juno; Taenarus and its billowy waters to royal Dis. Pallas guards the Cecropian citadels [Athens]; Pythius [Apollo], Delphi the centre of the world;[*]( According to an ancient fable, Jupiter, desirous of finding the centre of the world, sent forth two eagles, one from the east, another from the west, ordering them to fly straight forward. They met at Delphi.) the maid of Delos [Diana), Crete and the Cynthian Hills; the Faun [Pan], Maenalus and the Arcadian woods. Rhodes is under the blest protection of the sun god [Apollo]; Gades and the humid Tibur, of Hercules; snowy Cyllene of the god of swiftness [Mercury]; and boiling Lemnos is dearer to the tardy god [Vulcan]. The women of Enna worship Ceres; oystery Cyzicum, the ravished goddess [Proserpine]; Gnidus and Paphos, the lovely Venus. To thee, mortals have devoted Lampsacus.

Although I am now growing old, and my beard and locks whiten with hoary hairs, I am still able to perforate [sodomise] a Tithonus, a Priam, and a Nestor, when caught. Ye see that ye stir up my bile, who continually raise a thick fence, and thus prevent thieves from approaching hither. This is hindering, whilst ye help me; this is not to admit birds to the fowler's snare. The way is blocked up, nor can the prostrate one expiate his crime at the expense of his buttocks. So that I who erstwhile was wont ever and ever and ever to cleave the buttocks of pilferers have had naught of employment this many a day and night. I also suffer punishment enough and more than enough; I flow off in seed, and once lecherous, no longer carry out my life's aim. Who would think of the lutist abstaining from his melody? But, lest I perish from senile decay, pray ye desist from such diligence, nor place a fibula on Priapus

But may the gods and goddesses deny nourishing food to thy teeth, O neighbouring cunnilinge, through whom my girl, hitherto strong and not false, and who was wont swiftly with untired step to hasten to me, now unfortunate Labdace swears that she can scarce drag her feet along by reason of her ditch

Priapus, though thou mayst be weighty with turgid fascinum, albeit our poet in his verses has cast this in thy teeth, blush not for it. Thou art not more heavily hung than is that poet of ours.