Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Direst of dreads I became, my right the robbers restraining,
  2. Eke with a ruddy pole from parts obscenely projected,
  3. While th' importunate fowls affrights a reed on my head-poll
  4. Planted, and hinders their flock from 'lighting in newly made gardens.
  5. Erst to be hither borne from narrow cellules ejected
  6. Corpses by fellow-slaves were coffined in biers of the vilest.
  7. This was the common yard to ensepulchre wretched plebeians,
  8. Pantolabus the buffoon and Nomentanus the rake-hell.
  9. Frontage a thousand feet, three hundred fieldwards, a land mark
  10. Here assigned, lest the ground monumental follow the heir folk.
  11. Now 'tis salubrious made: one fives in th' Esquiliae, also
  12. Walks on the sunny mound, where erstwhile showed to folk sad-eyed