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.)