Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. This fieldlet, leftwards as thy glances fall,
  2. And my lord's cottage with his pauper garth
  3. Protect, repelling thieves' rapacious hands.
  4. In spring with vari-coloured wreaths I'm crown'd,
  5. In fervid summer with the glowing grain,
  6. Then with green vine-shoot and the luscious bunch,
  7. And glaucous olive-tree in bitter cold.
  8. The dainty she-goat from my pasture bears
  9. Her milk-distended udders to the town:
  10. Out of my sheep-cotes ta'en the fatted lamb
  11. Sends home with silver right-hand heavily charged;
  12. And, while its mother lows, the tender calf
  13. Before the temples of the Gods must bleed.