Sportive Epigrams on Priapus (in prose) (11-15)

A certain hag, more aged than the mother [Hecuba] of Hector (the sister, I opine, of the Cumaean Sibyl), old as thou whom Theseus when he came back home found lying in the grave, often comes hither with tottering steps, and lifting her shrivelled hands to the stars, begs that she may not lack the mentule. In yesterday's fight too, while praying, she spat out one of her three teeth. Take it far away, I say, and bid it he concealed under thy tattered tunic and thy scarlet stole, as 'tis its custom; let it shun the fight of thy meagre jaws, which, thy hairy nose in the air, gape with a chasm so foul and enormous that you would. think an Epicurean was yawning.

I warn thee, my lad, thou wilt be sodomised; thee, my girl, I shall futter;[*] for the thief who is bearded, a third punishment[*] remains.

Hither, hither, whoever thou art, to the venerable sanctuary of the lecherous God, nor think to be turned away. And if a girl were with thee in the night, 'tis no reason why thou shouldst fear to approach my altar; though it is otherwise with the stem Gods above.[*] I am a good-for-naught, a paltry rustic deity of scant culture. I stand in the open air, my modesty thrust aside, My bollocks exposed to view. Therefore, 'tis permitted to enter hither all who will, besmirched with the black filth of the stews.[*]

He who shall plunder with dishonest hand the little field committed to my charge, shall feel me to be no eunuch[*] in this lonely place among the bushes. Here, perhaps, he will say this to himself, 'None will know that I have been thrust through.'[*] He will be mistaken; that cause will be sustained by 'weighty' witnesses![*]

As the apples with which Hippomenes raped the daughter of Schoeneus;[*] for which the garden of the Hesperides was renowned; which one may imagine Nausicaa[*] often carrying in her teeming lap as she walked in her father's domains; as was that apple graced by the words of Acontius, which, read aloud [by Cydippe], pledged the maiden to this ardent lover[*]--such are those which the boy-owner of a small but fertile field has placed on thy sacrificial table, O naked Priapus.