Romans set up in their gardens statues of Priapus, the god of fertility, depicted with an erect penis, both to make them fruitful and as a guardian. Sometimes they had verses attached, offering prayers to the god or warning trespassers the statue will come alive and sodomize them. From this practice, explicit priapic epigrams became a literary genre. The one surviving anthology of such poems is called The Priapea, all anonymous. Here are eight translations.

#49

You’ve looked upon my temple walls and seen
Some joking poems the chaste won’t read aloud.
Don’t be offended that it’s all obscene:
The verse my prick provokes is not highbrowed.

Tu, quicumque vides circa tectoria nostra
non nimium casti carmina plena ioci,
versibus obscenis offendi desine: non est
mentula subducti nostra supercilii.

#4

“Lady” Lalage dedicates this to
The rigid god: these obscene votive pictures
From Elephantis’ books, and asks that you
Attempt (with her) what’s shown by all the figures.

Obscenas rigido deo tabellas
dicans ex Elephantidos libellis
dat donum Lalage rogatque, temptes,
si pictas opus edat ad figuras.

#8

“Virtuous wives, go far away from here—
Your reading shameless verse is an offense.”
They couldn’t give a fig and come straight hence—
Without a doubt, these matrons have good sense
And see my mammoth penis with great cheer.

Matronae procul hinc abite castae:
turpe est vos legere impudica verba.
Non assis faciunt euntque recta:
nimirum sapiunt videntque magnam
matronae quoque mentulam libenter.

#10

Why are you laughing, O most foolish puss?
I wasn’t carved, it’s true, by famous men
Or polished by great Phidias’s hands,
But bailiff-hacked from rough wood of his choosing—
See what he said, that “You’ll be Priapus.”
And yet, you look at me and laugh again.
I know—it must be how my column stands
Up from my groin that you find so amusing.

Insulsissima quid puella rides?
non me Praxiteles Scopasve fecit,
nec sum Phidiaca manu politus;
sed lignum rude vilicus dolavit,
et dixit mihi: ‘tu Priapus esto.’
Spectas me tamen et subinde rides?
Nimirum tibi salsa res videtur
adstans inguinibus columna nostris.

#35

Your first time, Thief, I bugger you;
A second time, your face gets fucked;
The third strike price: both one and two—
I’ll sodomize you once you’ve sucked.

Pedicabere, fur, semel; sed idem
si deprensus eris bis, irrumabo.
quod si tertia furta molieris,
ut poenam patiare et hanc et illam,
pedicaberis irrumaberisque.