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
  14. Walks on the sunny mound, where erstwhile showed to folk sad-eyed
  15. Fields by bones deformed a-glistening ghostly and ghastly;
  16. Yet for me never was aught, or thieves or ferals accustomed
  17. This foul spot to behaunt, a cause of such care and such trouble
  18. As are the hags who by spells and poisons upset and envenom
  19. Spirits and minds of mankind; these nowise bring to perdition
  20. Nor even hinder can I; no sooner doth wandering Luna