Priapeia

Priaepia

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

Thou also mockest, O thief, and when threatened, dost stretch out to me the indecent finger![*]( The middle finger. It was called 'infamous', according to some writers, on account of the custom of the Jews, who used to wipe the podex when they suffered from bleeding piles. This is not so. It derived its name from its resemblance to the mentule, and it is used in that sense here. When the middle finger is pointing, the other fingers are turned inside, representing a mentule with its accessories; for which reason it was thus pointedly shown in derision to sodomites. Martial: 'Cestus with tears in his eyes often complains to me, Mamurianus, of being teased with your finger.' In an admirable article on pederasty in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: 'Debauchees had signals like Freemasons whereby they recognised one another. The Greek skematízein was made by closing the hand to represent the scrotum and raising the middle finger as if to feel whether a hen had eggs; hence the Athenians called it catapygon or sodomite and the Romans digitus impudicus or infamis, the 'medical finger' of Rabelais and the Chiromantists--though properly speaking medicus is the third or ring-finger, as shown by the old Chiromantist verses. The modern Italian does the same by inserting the thumb-tip between the index and medius to suggest the clitoris. When the Egyptians wish to represent pederasty, they painted two partridges, who, when bereft of their mates, were supposed to enjoy each other. Pliny supports this statement.The finger was also pointed at people as a mark of simple contempt. Martial: 'He points with the finger, but with the infamous finger.' Persius says, without any obscene afterthought, 'The grandmother cleanses with infamous finger the infant.') 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.