Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Thou who with prickle affrightest men and passives with sickle!
  2. Of the secluded spot deign the few acres to guard;
  3. So may the veteran thieves ne'er force their way to thine orchards;
  4. Only come lad or lass lovely with longest of locks.
  1. I am not hewèd of the fragile elm
  2. Nor is this post supine with rigid vein
  3. Carved out of any wood thou please to take;
  4. But 'tis engendered by live cypress-tree
  5. Which fears nor hundred ages fully told
  6. Nor the decaying of long, drawn-out eld.
  7. Dread this (O evil one!) whoe'er thou be!
  8. For an thou injure with thy greedy hand
  9. The least of bunches by this vine-stock borne
  10. Shall spring (howe'er thou may oppose) for thee
  11. A fig-tree grafted from this cypress-stem.
  1. A robber famed for greed exceeding wonder
  2. (Eke a Cilician) would this garden plunder;
  3. Yet in its vasty space, Fabullus, naught
  4. Save a Priapus stood in marble wrought
  5. So the Cilician, who with hand sans pelf