Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. The perilous spittle ever must outspew.
  1. Well-known darling of folk in the Circus Maximus far famed,
  2. Quinctia, tremulous hips trainèd and artful to wag,
  3. Cymbals and castanets (the wanton arms) to Priapus
  4. Offers and tambourine struck with the hand to self drawn.
  5. Wherefore prays she that aye she please her mob of admirers;
  6. Let one and all stand stiff after the wont of her god.
  1. Thou, of unrighteous thought, that hardly canst
  2. Refrain from robbing this my garden-plot,
  3. With foot-long fascinum shalt bulghar'd be:
  4. Yet if so mighty grievous punishment
  5. Profit thee naught, at higher stead I'll strike.
  1. Priapus! perish I an words obscene
  2. And wicked terms to use I'm not ashamed:
  3. But whenas thou, a god (bylaying shame),
  4. To me displayest bollocks evident,
  5. With Coynte the Prickle I must baldly name.
  1. Dreadful wi' sickle and dire with thy greater part, O Priapus!
  2. Prithee to me point out which be the way to the fount?
  1. Hie thee amid these vines whereof an thou gather a grape-bunch