The Priapeia,
a new translation and sympathetic interpretation
of the God and the ancient text
Many gods and goddesses occupy the high temples of Olympus and crowd the many niches of museums. You will know and recognize Aegis-Bearing Zeus, Cow-Eyed Hera, Phoebus Apollo, Pallas Athena and others of the sky-gods, you might even know Poseidon, God of the Sea, and Hades, God of the Underworld, yet few know humble Priapos, cut from a tree, a god imperfect, much alike you and me.
Priapos, you see, is a god of fertility, a naughty god rumored to be the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite … and you know what to expect from those two, trouble in double measure. Yes, poor Priapos was cursed from the first, rejected by brothers, sisters, cousins, and cast down through clouds to earth where he was raised by humble shepherds.
And why cast down? Because he was ugly, because he rutted in lust like a boar, because he is like us, creatures who enjoy play in hay. Glad I am that Priapos was cast down, not least for the opportunity to translate verses in his honor (and to compose dozens of my own invention), but because Priapos prodigiously points the way to pleasure, practice in veneration. Even the least of gods will want worship.
Seldom do you find worship of Priapos in wealth’s polite halls, though most everyone in quiet seeks his shrines. Women, as you know, come early to Priapos’ worship, crash their lust upon his rock then swim away to safety, to family, reformed in their ways and doubled with child. Males too will come to Priapos, prettily softened to his ways, making themselves pointless to females, making themselves an opportunity for ribald jokes, man-to-man.
Some men come to Priapos humble in petition asking favor for restoration of manhood, which the God will grant if inclined, if amused, if the petition and the man is worthy of notice. Priapos has his own troubles, his own concerns, his own citadels to breech, his many conquests and considerate responsibilities.
As mentioned, Priapos is God of Fertility, a God of Gardens who must bring the flower to bloom, must seed her to bring forth fruit. And then the God must hoe, twine, trim, he must drive away thieves and voyeurs and creepers, though sometimes he will invite creepers in when inspired by wine, when beneath the full moon Daisy and Lily, Peasblossom and Ivy run riot and he, though willing, is unable to serve the needs and hungry wants of his fertile guests.
Some of you will know that Priapos cares for bees, curates their nectars and honeys, that he is a watcher of flocks who can read the signs of chick and hen, and raven, a prophet who knows the ways of women. He is the protector of fair things, gentle with the gentle, harsh to the harsh. Priapos is much approved by the country-folk who live close to the land, who know of works and days and seasons, who lie in love, who plant seeds in labor, who earnestly attend lust that life might full blossom from earth.
And Priapos is the scarecrow, as farmers, bachelors of art, and students of history know. Perhaps you know of the well-made Priapos in Maecenas luxuriant Roman garden, of his friends Horace and Martial and Petronius, poets who would leave verses tied to Priapos’ large and scary member, scrolls rolled or folded, made snug with pretty ribbon or dangley string, or sometimes scattered alike rose petals at the God’s feet.
It is said, perhaps truly, that Ovid and Virgil contributed to Priapos’ garden of verse. I cannot with authority speak of this, yet I can say that the Priapeia verses are often fine rendered in meter and phrase. These collected verses, known as the Carmina Priapeia, total 80, though occasionally some Hellenistic lyric is amended to the collection, swelling the number and arousing scholarly passions.
You know how scholars will argue alike rabid dogs over tendonous bones. Just so scholars argue over the Priapeia in growlish barks and snarlish nips. The rest of us enjoy the Priapeia for what it is, lusty fun invented to amuse us and to bring us to knowledge of the God.
One hundred thirty years ago (1890), the naughty publisher Smithers*, and Sir Richard Burton, offered a boring, dry translation of the Priapeia (as scholars do when in fealty to footnotes, when in fear of reputation). Hooper’s translation of twenty-five years ago (1999)**, is a historiographic, bibliographic joke book with commentary on Roman sexual mores. Recent translations, both vile and upstanding, are to be found lying about, unread.
The Priapeia of Professor Priapos: A Collection of Sportive Verse, titled, The Priapeia: A New Interpretation by Michel Curtis, sympathetically touches upon details of Priapos’ career, his stretching into birth, his adventures and misadventures, his care of the garden, his failures, his hopes, his wishes, his deflation and his fading away. He is only a God, after all.
This delightful Priapeia is composed of sixty sonnets diverse in meter and rhyme, and line. There is a coda and an apologia. The “Argument of the Book” is quoted here:
Some have guessed that I was gathered
from around Priapos’ feet
of verses scrawled, of lines graffitied
and from inscriptions neat.
Others suppose I was composed
by Maecenas’ clever fellows
when toasting P. in meter’d verse
for bookish wit to show.
Many perceive the evidence
of a fancy pedigree
from Martial, Ovid, Juv, Catullus
and Virgil in composing me.
Most recently my pages swell
tailing on Sir Richard Burton,
as here by Curtis I’m augmented
and shortened, I’m certain.
Yet, to the point, it matters not
what ere the learned source is
so long as you do practice well
the lesson of my courses.
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* The Priapus Poems: Erotic Epigrams from Ancient Rome
** Leonard Smithers, publisher of the Decadents, Beardsley, Dowson, Symons, et alia, through The Savoy and the Chiswick Press; friend and publisher of Wilde in his failing, Paris years, including Wilde’s poignant masterwork, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
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Welcome to the Garden of Priapus, male God of Fertility, He of the swelling, the seeding, the blossoming into pleasure. Here you will find sensation, youth, goodness and spirited delight in stories both ancient and modern, secular and sacred (in the ancient way of worship), pagan and free and forceful, and then there is frivolity and surprise.
Come! Dare, open the old garden gate and enter if you are pure of soul, healthy of spirit, well-disposed in the flesh, inclined to taste the fruit of love, to swoon to sights and sounds, to breath fully the aroma of rose, of lemon and of apple blossom. Open yourself to penetrating translations of ancient authors, of liberty in opinion, of diversity in action, in sensuality of the ear and of the mind … the mind, that most amorous of organs. Attend, hear, Enter! and enjoy. Then, good Christian, repent.
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