Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Spirits and minds of mankind; these nowise bring to perdition
  2. Nor even hinder can I; no sooner doth wandering Luna
  3. Show her full face than bones and ill herbs they hasten to gather.
  4. I with these eyes espied in sables kilted a-pacing
  5. Canidia, nude-foot, long hair bestrewing her shoulders,
  6. Howling with Sagana th' elder (and paleness had rendered the couple
  7. Horrid of mien); anon both the ground with their talons
  8. Clawing, and black-fleeced lamb with teeth a-tearing to tatters
  9. Either began; its gore in a ditch was spillèd, so thereby
  10. Ghosts might be raised from graves and answers give to their queries.
  11. Images too there were, this of wool, that of wax, and the greater
  12. Woollen that seemed with pains about to punish the lesser
  13. Suppliant standing in wax as one foredoomèd to perish
  14. After a servile way. One calls on Hecate, th' other