Priapeia

Priaepia

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

  1. Planted, and hinders their flock from 'lighting in newly made gardens.
  2. Erst to be hither borne from narrow cellules ejected
  3. Corpses by fellow-slaves were coffined in biers of the vilest.
  4. This was the common yard to ensepulchre wretched plebeians,
  5. Pantolabus the buffoon and Nomentanus the rake-hell.
  6. Frontage a thousand feet, three hundred fieldwards, a land mark
  7. Here assigned, lest the ground monumental follow the heir folk.
  8. Now 'tis salubrious made: one fives in th' Esquiliae, also
  9. Walks on the sunny mound, where erstwhile showed to folk sad-eyed
  10. Fields by bones deformed a-glistening ghostly and ghastly;
  11. Yet for me never was aught, or thieves or ferals accustomed