Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Aye under Jove with balls a-bare we stand:
  2. Then enter whoso hither entry seek
  3. Reckless of bawdy-house's blackened reek!
  1. Charged to my charge the fieldlet who shall dare
  2. With hand not modest anywise molest,
  3. Me fox no eunuch he shall know and feet.
  4. Here in a distant place the hurst amid
  5. He peradventure to himself shall say--
  6. 'None! saw me so misused.' But he is wrong:
  7. These huge attestors shall the cause maintain.
  1. Rare as those apples wherewith Hippomenes Schoeneïs ravished;
  2. Fair as the fruits that enfam'd Garths of the Hesperid maids;
  3. Fen as one fancies the lot which, pacing her patrial vergers,
  4. Nausicaä full oft bare in her well-fillèd lap;
  5. Sweet as the pome whereon Acontius limnèd the letters
  6. Which being read his Fair pledged to her love-longing swain;
  7. Such be the fruits that youth who owneth the flourishing fieldlet
  8. Placed on the table of stone, naked Priapus! for thee.
  1. What hast thou, meddling watch, with me to do?
  2. Why baulk the robber who to me would come?