Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. When the mechanic in doubt anent making me stool or Priapus
  2. Chose me for being a god; so a god to the thieves and the birdies
  3. Direst of dreads I became, my right the robbers restraining,
  4. Eke with a ruddy pole from parts obscenely projected,
  5. While th' importunate fowls affrights a reed on my head-poll
  6. Planted, and hinders their flock from 'lighting in newly made gardens.
  7. Erst to be hither borne from narrow cellules ejected
  8. Corpses by fellow-slaves were coffined in biers of the vilest.
  9. This was the common yard to ensepulchre wretched plebeians,
  10. Pantolabus the buffoon and Nomentanus the rake-hell.
  11. Frontage a thousand feet, three hundred fieldwards, a land mark
  12. Here assigned, lest the ground monumental follow the heir folk.
  13. Now 'tis salubrious made: one fives in th' Esquiliae, also