Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- Who could believe my words? 'Tis shame to confess that the sickle
- Yon thief-folk have availed e'en from my fingers to thieve.
- Nor doth its loss so much affect my mind or dishonour
- As the just, natural dread other my weapons to lose,
- Which lost shall I stand mulcted of country, and he that was erewhile
- Son of the city to thee, Lampsacus! Gaul shall become.
- Thou too dost mock me, Thief! and the infamous
- Finger dost point when menacèd by me!
- Ah hapless I, that should be only wood
- What makes me ever formidable seem!
- Yet will I charge my garden's lustful lord
- For me deign robber-folk to irrumate.
- A chough, a caries, an eld-worn grave,
- By lapse of crowding centuries rotten grown,