Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Either began; its gore in a ditch was spillèd, so thereby
  2. Ghosts might be raised from graves and answers give to their queries.
  3. Images too there were, this of wool, that of wax, and the greater
  4. Woollen that seemed with pains about to punish the lesser
  5. Suppliant standing in wax as one foredoomèd to perish
  6. After a servile way. One calls on Hecate, th' other
  7. Summons fell Tisiphone; then mightest thou look upon serpents
  8. Wriggling with Hell-sluts around, whilst Luna ruddily blushing
  9. Hid her behind the tall tombs lest she these doings might witness.
  10. Now if I false in aught be, my head bewrayed with white mutings
  11. Dropt by the crows and hither repair to bepiss and conskite me
  12. Julius, frail Pediatia and eke Voranus the robber.
  13. Why should I mention all and each? how chattered alternate
  14. With Sagana these ghosts, now sad-toned then in sharp treble.
  15. How too the head of a wolf with fangs of variegate adder
  16. Furtive they buried in earth, whereat for the waxen imago
  17. Fiercelier flamed the fire and how (no unavenged witness!)
  18. I was o'erwhelmed by the words and the deeds of these Furies well-coupled;
  19. For that like bladder that bursts with a loud explosion I farted
  20. From my cleft buttocks of fig. Hereat they ran to the city,