Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Chose me for being a god; so a god to the thieves and the birdies
  2. Direst of dreads I became, my right the robbers restraining,
  3. Eke with a ruddy pole from parts obscenely projected,
  4. While th' importunate fowls affrights a reed on my head-poll
  5. Planted, and hinders their flock from 'lighting in newly made gardens.
  6. Erst to be hither borne from narrow cellules ejected
  7. Corpses by fellow-slaves were coffined in biers of the vilest.
  8. This was the common yard to ensepulchre wretched plebeians,
  9. Pantolabus the buffoon and Nomentanus the rake-hell.
  10. Frontage a thousand feet, three hundred fieldwards, a land mark
  11. Here assigned, lest the ground monumental follow the heir folk.
  12. Now 'tis salubrious made: one fives in th' Esquiliae, also
  13. Walks on the sunny mound, where erstwhile showed to folk sad-eyed
  14. Fields by bones deformed a-glistening ghostly and ghastly;
  15. Yet for me never was aught, or thieves or ferals accustomed
  16. This foul spot to behaunt, a cause of such care and such trouble
  17. As are the hags who by spells and poisons upset and envenom
  18. Spirits and minds of mankind; these nowise bring to perdition
  19. Nor even hinder can I; no sooner doth wandering Luna
  20. Show her full face than bones and ill herbs they hasten to gather.