Sportive Epigrams on Priapus (in prose) (36-40)

We have each distinguishing features in the formation of our bodies: in Phoebus 'tis luxuriant locks, in Hercules muscular power; and the effeminate Bacchus has the figure of a girl. Minerva's eye is light in colour, Venus's prettily blinking. You see the forehead of the Arcadian Fauns rubicund with colour. The messenger of the gods, [Mercury] has shapely feet, the guardian of Lemnos walks with an uneven step [the lame Vulcan] and Aesculapius always wears a never shaven beard. No man is more broad-chested than the warlike Mars; but if 'mid this array there remain any place for me, than Priapus no Deity hath a larger or better-hung mentule

You ask why the instrument of procreation has been painted on the memorable tablet. When by accident I had bruised my penis, and wretched with suffering, dreaded the hand of the surgeon (moreover I was afraid to give the cure of my mentule to the legitimate and almighty gods, such as Phoebus, for instance, and Phoebus's son),[*] 'Help, O Priapus,' quoth I, 'help thou the part whose very counterpart, O Sire, thou seemest; and if thou shalt restore it safely to health without amputation,[*] I will consecrate to thee, painted on a tablet, a very facsimile of it, alike in size, shape and colour! 'The God promised; for nod bobbed his mentule;[*] and has granted my prayer.

Since my nature[*] is always open, it behoves me to say to thee--whate'er it is--frankly. I wish to pedicate; thou wishest to pluck apples. What I desire, if thou wilt give: what thou desirest, thou shalt receive.

Mercury has a pleasing form, Apollo's is eminent for its beauty; Lyaeus too is painted of comely figure; Cupid is handsomest of all. My figure is, I confess, wanting in beauty, but my mentule is, in truth, magnificent; and if there be a girl with a sensible coynte, she had rather have that for herself than all the former gods

Telethusa, notorious amongst the damsels of the Via Subura,[*] who, I believe, has bought her freedom with the profits of prostitution,[*] encircles thy penis, O venerable one, with a golden crown, for these pathic women consider it equal in eminence to a god.