Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. After a servile way. One calls on Hecate, th' other
  2. Summons fell Tisiphone; then mightest thou look upon serpents
  3. Wriggling with Hell-sluts around, whilst Luna ruddily blushing
  4. Hid her behind the tall tombs lest she these doings might witness.
  5. Now if I false in aught be, my head bewrayed with white mutings
  6. Dropt by the crows and hither repair to bepiss and conskite me
  7. Julius, frail Pediatia and eke Voranus the robber.
  8. Why should I mention all and each? how chattered alternate
  9. With Sagana these ghosts, now sad-toned then in sharp treble.
  10. How too the head of a wolf with fangs of variegate adder
  11. Furtive they buried in earth, whereat for the waxen imago
  12. Fiercelier flamed the fire and how (no unavenged witness!)
  13. I was o'erwhelmed by the words and the deeds of these Furies well-coupled;
  14. For that like bladder that bursts with a loud explosion I farted