Epigram IV: Priapus (Lang)

When thou hast turned yonder lane, goatherd, where the oak-trees are, thou wilt find an image of fig-tree wood, newly carven; three-legged it is, the bark still covers it, and it is earless withal, yet meet for the arts of Cypris. A right holy precinct runs round it, and a ceaseless stream that falleth from the rocks on every side is green with laurels, and myrtles, and fragrant cypress. And all around the place that child of the grape, the vine, doth flourish with its tendrils, and the merles in spring with their sweet songs utter their wood-notes wild, and the brown nightingales reply with their complaints, pouring from their bills the honey-sweet song. There, prithee, sit down and pray to gracious Priapus, that I may be delivered from my love of Daphnis, and say that instantly thereon I will sacrifice a fair kid. But if he refuse, ah then, should I win Daphnis’s love, I would fain sacrifice three victims,—and offer a calf, a shaggy he-goat, and a lamb that I keep in the stall, and oh that graciously the god may hear my prayer.