63

Priapus

Parum est quod hic ut fiximus semel sedem,
agente terra per caniculam rimas
siticulosam sustinemus aestatem?
parum, quod hiemis perfluunt sinus imbres
et in capillos grandines cadunt nostros
rigetque dura barba vincta crystallo?
parum, quod acta sub laboribus luce
parem diebus pervigil traho noctem?
huc adde, quod me fuste de rudi vilem
manus sine arte rusticae dolaverunt,
interque cunctos ultimum deos numen
cucurbitarum ligneus vocor custos.
accedit istis impudentiae signum,
libidinoso tenta pyramis nervo.
ad hanc puella - paene nomen adieci -
solet venire cum suo fututore,
quae tot figuris, quot Philaenis enarrat,
non inventis, pruriosa discedit.

'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,
With beard fast frozen, rigid by the rime.
'Tis not enough that days in labour spent
Sleepless I lengthen through the nights as long.
Add that a godhead terrible of staff
Hewed me the rustic's rude unartful hand
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)
Is with her fornicator wont to come
And save in every mode Philaenis tells
Futtered, in furious lust her way she wends.

'Tis not enough, O friends, that I have fixed my abode here, where the earth gapes into chinks through the heat of the dog days, and that I daily endure the summer's drought; 'tis not enough that the rains flow down my bosom, that hail-storms beat amongst my bared locks, and that my beard frozen together is stiffened by the ice: 'tis too little that having spent the day in labour, I protract it, sleepless, through a night equally long. Add to this, that the unskilled hands of a rustic have chopped me, the awe-inspiring god with a cudgel, and that, amongst all the gods the lowest deity, I am called the wooden guardian of gourds. A pyramid [the virile member] stretched forth with libidinous vigour joins to these the symbol of shamelessness. Hither a damsel (I had almost added her name) is wont to come with her futterer: who if as many forms as Philaenis narrates she does not experience, she departs raging with unsated lust.