Priapeia
Priaepia
by divers poets in English verse and prose. Translated by Sir Richard Burton and Leonard C. Smithers
- Never delighted, of song never a subject had he;
- But for the Tantalid's tool being known to Fame and well noted
- Old man Chryses had naught left him for making his moan.
- This did his mate dispoil of a fond affectionate mistress
- And of a prize not his plunderèd Aeacides,
- He that aye chaunted his dirge of distress to the lyre Pelethronian,
- Lyre of the stiff taut string, stiffer the string of himself.
- Ilias, noble poem, was gotten and born of such direful
- Ire, of that Sacred Song such was original cause.
- Matter of different kind was the wander of crafty Ulysses:
- An thou would verity know Love too was motor of this.
- Hence does he gather the root whence springs that aureate blossom
- Which whenas 'Moly' hight, 'Moly' but 'Mentula' means.
- Here too of Circe we read and Calypso, daughter of Atlas,
- Bearing the mighty commands dealt by Dulichian Brave
- Whom did Alcinous' maiden admire by cause of his member
- For with a leafy branch hardly that yard could be dad.
- Yet was he hasting, his way to regain his little old woman:
- Thy coynte (Penelope!) claiming his every thought;
- Thou who bidest so chaste with mind ever set upon banquets