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(From Priapeia. London. 1889)
SONG I. TO PRIAPUS IN play, Priapus, (thou canst testify), | |
| Songs, fit for garden not for book-work, I | |
| Wrote and none over-care applied thereto. | |
| No Muses dared I (like the Verseful Crew) | |
| Invite to visit such invirginal site. | 5 |
| For heart and senses did forbid me quite | |
| To set the choir Pierian, chaste and fair, | |
| Before Priapus’ tool—such deed to dare. | |
| Then whatsoe’er I wrote when idly gay, | |
| And on this Temple-wall for note I lay, | 10 |
| Take in good part: such is the prayer I pray. | |
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II. Darkly might I to thee say: Oh give me for ever and ever | |
| What thou may’st constantly give while of it nothing be lost; | |
| Give me what vainly thou’lt long to bestow in the days that are coming, | |
| When that invidious beard either soft cheek shall invade; | 15 |
| What unto Jove gave he who, borne by the worshipful flyer, | |
| Mixes the gratefullest cups, ever his leman’s delight; | |
| What on the primal night maid gives to her love-longing bridegroom | |
| Dreading ineptly the hurt dealt to a different part. | |
| Simpler far to declare in our Latin, Lend me thy buttocks; | 20 |
| What shall I say to thee else? Dull’s the Minerva of me. | |
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III. These tablets, sacred to the Rigid God, | |
| From Elephantis’ obscene booklets drawn, | |
| Lalage offers and she prays thee try | |
| To ply the painted figures’ every part. | 25 |
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IV. All the conditions (they say) Priapus made with the youngling, | |
| Written in verses twain mortals hereunder can read: | |
| “Whatso my garden contains to thee shall be lawfullest plunder | |
| If unto us thou give whatso thy garden contains.” | |
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V. Though I be wooden Priapus (as thou see’st), | 30 |
| With wooden sickle and a prickle of wood, | |
| Yet will I seize thee, Girl! and hold thee seized | |
| And This, however gross, withouten fraud | |
| Stiffer than lyre-string or than twisted rope | |
| I’ll thrust and bury to thy seventh rib. | 35 |
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VII. Matrons avoid this site, for your chaste breed | |
| ’Twere vile these verses impudique to read. | |
| They still come on and not a doit they heed! | |
| O’ermuch these matrons know and they regard | |
| With willing glances this my vasty yard. | 40 |
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IX. Why laugh such laughter, O most silly maid? | |
| My form Praxiteles nor Scopas hewed: | |
| To me no Phidian handwork finish gave; | |
| But me a bailiff hacked from shapeless log, | |
| And quoth my maker, “Thou Priapus be!” | 45 |
| Yet on me gazing forthright gigglest thou | |
| And holdest funny matter to deride | |
| The pillar perking from the groin of me. | |
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XVIII. Will ever Telethusa, posture-mime, | |
| Who with no tunic veiling hinder cheeks | 50 |
| Higher than her vitals heaves with apter geste | |
| Wriggle to please thee with her wavy loins? | |
| So thee, Priapus, not alone she’ll move | |
| E’en Phaedra’s stepson shall her movement rouse. | |
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XXV. Hither, Quirites! (here what limit is?) | 55 |
| Either my member seminal lop ye off | |
| Which thro’ the livelong nights for aye fatigue | |
| The neighbour-women rutting endlessly, | |
| Lewder than sparrows in the lusty spring; | |
| Or I shall burst and ye Priapus lose. | 60 |
| How I be futtered-out yourselves espy | |
| Used-up, bejaded, lean and pallid grown, | |
| Who erstwhile ruddy, in my doughtiness wont | |
| To kill with poking thieves however doughty. | |
| My side has failed me and poor I with cough | 65 |
| The perilous spittle ever must outspew. | |
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XLIV. What shouldest say this spear (although I’m wooden) be wishing | |
| Whenas a maiden chance me in the middle to kiss? | |
| Here none augur we need: believe my word she is saying:— | |
| “Let the rude spear in me work with its natural wont!” | 70 |
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LXIII. ’Tis not enough, my friends, I set my seat | |
| Where earth gapes chinky under Canicule, | |
| Ever enduring thirsty summer’s drought. | |
| ’Tis not enough the showers flow down my breast | |
| And beat the hail-storms on my naked hair, | 75 |
| With beard fast frozen, rigid by the rime. | |
| ’Tis not enough that days in labor spent | |
| Sleepless I lengthen through the nights as long. | |
| Add that a godhead terrible of staff | |
| Hewed me the rustic’s rude unartful hand | 80 |
| And made me vilest of all deities, | |
| Invoked as wooden guardian of the gourds. | |
| And more, for shameless note to me was ’signed | |
| With lustful nerve a pyramid distent, | |
| Whereto a damsel (whom well nigh I’d named) | 85 |
| Is with her fornicator wont to come | |
| And save in every mode Philaenis tells | |
| Futtered, in furious lust her way she wends. | |
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LXIX. What then? Had Trojan yard Taenerian dame and her Cunnus | |
| Never delighted, of song never a subject had he: | 90 |
| But for the Tantalid’s tool being known to Fame and well noted | |
| Old man Chryses had naught left him for making his moan. | |
| This did his mate dispoil of a fond affectionate mistress | |
| And of a prize not his plundered Aeacides, | |
| He that aye chaunted his dirge of distress to the lyre Pelethronian, | 95 |
| Lyre of the stiff taut string, stiffer the string of himself. | |
| Ilias, noble poem, was gotten and born of such direful | |
| Ire, of that Sacred Song such was original cause. | |
| Matter of different kind was the wander of crafty Ulysses: | |
| An thou would verity know Love too was motor of this. | 100 |
| Hence does he gather the root whence springs that aureate blossom | |
| Which whenas “Moly” hight, “Moly” but “Mentula” means. | |
| Here too of Circe we read and Calypso, daughter of Atlas, | |
| Bearing the mighty commands dealt by Dulichian Brave | |
| Whom did Alcinous’ maiden admire by cause of his member | 105 |
| For with a leafy branch hardly that yard could be clad. | |
| Yet was he hasting his way to regain his little old woman: | |
| Thy coynte (Penelope!) claiming his every thought; | |
| Thou who bidest so chaste with mind ever set upon banquets | |
| And with a futtering crew alway thy palace was filled: | 110 |
| Then that thou learn of these which were most potent of swiving, | |
| Wont wast thou to bespeak, saying to suitors erect:— | |
| “Than my Ulysses none was better at drawing the bowstring | |
| Whether by muscles of side or by superior skill; | |
| And, as he now is deceased, do ye all draw and inform me | 115 |
| Which of ye men be the best so that my man he become.” | |
| Thy heart, Penelope, right sure by such pow’r I had pleased, | |
| But at the time not yet had I been made of mankind. |
