Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Pedicate I pronounce. Reason--a trip of the tongue!
  1. Matrons avoid this site, for your chaste breed
  2. 'Twere vile these verses impudique to read.
  3. They still come on and not a doit they heed!
  4. O'ermuch these matrons know and they regard
  5. With willing glances this my vasty yard.
  1. 'Why be my parts obscene displayed without cover?' thou askest:
  2. Ask I wherefore no God careth his sign to conceal?
  3. Wieldeth the Lord of the World his thunderbolt ever unhidden,
  4. Nor is trident a-sheath given to the Watery God:
  5. Mars never veileth that blade whose might is his prevalent power,