Priapeia

Priaepia

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

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