Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. In spring with vari-coloured wreaths I'm crown'd,
  2. In fervid summer with the glowing grain,
  3. Then with green vine-shoot and the luscious bunch,
  4. And glaucous olive-tree in bitter cold.
  5. The dainty she-goat from my pasture bears
  6. Her milk-distended udders to the town:
  7. Out of my sheep-cotes ta'en the fatted lamb
  8. Sends home with silver right-hand heavily charged;
  9. And, while its mother lows, the tender calf
  10. Before the temples of the Gods must bleed.
  11. Hence of such Godhead (traveller!), stand in awe;
  12. Best it befits thee off to keep thy hands.
  13. Thy cross is ready, shaped as artless yard;
  14. 'I'm willing 'faith' (thou say'st) but 'faith here comes
  15. The boor and plucking forth with bended arm
  16. Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.
  1. This place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turf-builded cottage,
  2. Roofed with its osier-twigs and thatched with its bundles of sedges;
  3. I from the dried oak hewn and fashioned with rustical hatchet
  4. Guarding them year by year while more are they evermore thriving.