Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- Remain as please thee or at will depart.
- For, though full ready seem I, yet I want
- Of rockets half-score bundles at the least,
- Ere I that ditch-like groin can scrub and crush
- The swarming wormlets of thy privy parts.
- Who of you people here shall come to sup
- Yet bring no verses suited to my taste;
- I pray his wife or punk, hot-wantoning,
- Reduce his rival to most languid state;
- While he, all lonely through the livelong night,
- Lie, by the lustful rockets sore disturbed.
- Tho' see you drenchèd wet that part of me
- Whereby Priapus I am signified;
- Nor dew (believe me!) 'twas nor hoary frost,
- But whatso gusheth of its own accord
- When I bethink me of a pathic god.
- Thou, who art 'customed to view around the walls of our temple
- Verse of a strain jocose rather than modest and chaste,
- Cease to be hurt by the song obscene, for verily ne'er was
- Wont our mentule to wear eyebrow up-drawn in surprise.