Shakespeare's Myths
Geoffrey Chaucer. The Parliament of Foules (1380-1382), 253-59:
The god Priapus saw I, as I wente,
Within the temple in soverayn place stonde,
In swich aray as whan the asse hym shente
With crye by night, and with his ceptre in honde;
Ful besily men gunne assaye and fonde
Upon his hed to sette, of sondry hewe,
Garlondes ful of fresshe floures newe
Geoffrey Chaucer. The Merchant’s Tale (1387-1400), 2028-37:
Amonges othere of his honeste thinges,
He made a gardyn, walled al with stoon;
So fair a gardin woot I nowher noon.
For, out of doute, I verraily suppose
That he that wroot the Romance of the Rose
Ne coude of it the beautee wel devyse;
Ne Priapus ne myghte nat suffyse,
Though he be god of gardins, for to telle
The beautee of the gardyn and the welle
That stood under a laurer alwey grene.
Francesco Colonna. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499). London: Methuen & Co., 1904 (based on the 1499 edition).
[A statue of the rude and rustic guardian of gardens stood on the altar, endowed with the attributes which characterize him… Shepherds would break numerous phials filled with a sacrificed donkey’s blood blended with wine and milk on his effigy... The procession was led by old Janus... They all went braying and singing... Such rites pleased, charmed and surprised me as much as the previous triumphs had filled me with admiration.]
François Rabelais. Tiers Livre (1546), VIII, “Comment la braguette est première pièce de harnois entre gens de guerre”.
François Rabelais. The third book, translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart (1693) (WING R110), VIII, “Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst warriors”:
Take notice, sir, quoth Panurge, when Dame Nature had prompted him to his own arming, what part of the body it was, where, by her inspiration, he clapped on the first harness. It was forsooth by the double pluck of my little dog the ballock and good Senor Don Priapos Stabo-stando – which done, he was content, and sought no more. This is certified by the testimony of the great Hebrew captain [and] philosopher Moses, who affirmeth that he fenced that member with a brave and gallant codpiece, most exquisitely framed, and by right curious devices of a notably pregnant invention made up and composed of fig-tree leaves, which by reason of their solid stiffness, incisory notches, curled frizzling, sleeked smoothness, large ampleness, together with their colour, smell, virtue, and faculty, were exceeding proper and fit for the covering and arming of the satchels of generation – the hideously big Lorraine cullions being from thence only excepted, which, swaggering down to the lowermost bottom of the breeches, cannot abide, for being quite out of all order and method, the stately fashion of the high and lofty codpiece; as is manifest by the noble Valentine Viardiere, whom I found at Nancy, on the first day of May – the more flauntingly to gallantrize it afterwards – rubbing his ballocks, spread out upon a table after the manner of a Spanish cloak.
François Rabelais. Tiers Livre (1546), XXXI, “Comment Rondibilis medicin conseille Panurge”.
François Rabelais. The third book, translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart (1693) (WING R110), XXXI, “How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge”.
François Rabelais. Quart Livre (1548-1552), Prologue.
François Rabelais. The fourth and fifth books, translated by Peter Anthony Motteux (1693) (WING R104A), “The Author’s Prologue”:
But what shall we do with this same Ramus and this Galland, with a pox to them, who, surrounded with a swarm of their scullions, blackguard ragamuffins, sizars, vouchers, and stipulators, set together by the ears the whole university of Paris? I am in a sad quandary about it, and for the heart’s blood of me cannot tell yet with whom of the two to side.
Both seem to me notable fellows, and as true cods as ever pissed. The one has rose-nobles, I say fine and weighty ones; the other would gladly have some too. The one knows something; the other’s no dunce. The one loves the better sort of men; the other’s beloved by ’em. The one is an old cunning fox; the other with tongue and pen, tooth and nail, falls foul on the ancient orators and philosophers, and barks at them like a cur.
What thinkest thou of it, say, thou bawdy Priapus? I have found thy counsel just before now, et habet tua mentula mentem [Your member has a mind of its own].
King Jupiter, answered Priapus, standing up and taking off his cowl, his snout uncased and reared up, fiery and stiffly propped, since you compare the one to a yelping snarling cur and the other to sly Reynard the fox, my advice is, with submission, that without fretting or puzzling your brains any further about ’em, without any more ado, even serve ’em both as, in the days of yore, you did the dog and the fox. How? asked Jupiter; when? who were they? where was it? You have a rare memory, for aught I see! returned Priapus. This right worshipful father Bacchus, whom we have here nodding with his crimson phiz, to be revenged on the Thebans had got a fairy fox, who, whatever mischief he did, was never to be caught or wronged by any beast that wore a head.
…
You deal too kindly by them, said Jupiter, for aught I see, Monsieur Priapus. You do not use to be so kind to everybody, let me tell you; for as they seek to eternize their names, it would be much better for them to be thus changed into hard stones than to return to earth and putrefaction. But now to other matters. …
Now, let us make an end of the difference betwixt the Levites and mole-catchers of Landerousse. Whereabouts were we? Priapus was standing in the chimney-corner, and having heard what Mercury had reported, said in a most courteous and jovial manner: King Jupiter, while by your order and particular favour I was garden-keeper-general on earth, I observed that this word “hatchet” is equivocal to many things; for it signifies a certain instrument by the means of which men fell and cleave timber. It also signifies (at least I am sure it did formerly) a female soundly and frequently thumpthumpriggletickletwiddletobyed. Thus I perceived that every cock of the game used to call his doxy his hatchet; for with that same tool (this he said lugging out and exhibiting his nine-inch knocker) they so strongly and resolutely shove and drive in their helves, that the females remain free from a fear epidemical amongst their sex, viz., that from the bottom of the male’s belly the instrument should dangle at his heel for want of such feminine props. And I remember, for I have a member, and a memory too, ay, and a fine memory, large enough to fill a butter-firkin; I remember, I say, that one day of tubilustre (horn-fair) at the festivals of goodman Vulcan in May, I heard Josquin Des Prez [Josquin des Prés], Olkegan [Johannes Ockeghem], Hobrecht [Jacob Obrecht], Agricola, Brumel, Camelin, Vigoris, De la Fage, Bruyer, Prioris, Seguin [Julio Segni], De la Rue, Midy, Moulu, Mouton, Gascogne [Mathieu Cascongne], Loyset, Compere [Loyset Compère], Penet, Fevin, Rousee, Richard Fort, Rousseau, Consilion [Jean Conseil (Johannes Consilium)], Constantio Festi [Constantino Festi], Jacquet Bercan [Jacquet van Berchem], melodiously singing the following catch on a pleasant green:
Long John to bed went to his bride,
And laid a mallet by his side:
What means this mallet, John? saith she.
Why! ’tis to wedge thee home, quoth he.
Alas! cried she, the man’s a fool:
What need you use a wooden tool?
When lusty John does to me come,
He never shoves but with his bum.
François Rabelais. Quart Livre (1548-1552), V, “Comment Pantagruel rencontra une nauf de voyagiers retournans du pays Lanternois”.
François Rabelais. The fourth and fifth books, translated by Peter Anthony Motteux (1693) (WING R104A), V, “How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning from Lanternland”.
François Rabelais. Quart Livre (1548-1552), XXXVIII, “Comment Andouilles ne sont à mespriser entre les humains”.
François Rabelais. The fourth and fifth books, translated by Peter Anthony Motteux (1693) (WING R104A), XXXVIIII, “How Chitterlings are not to be slighted by men”.
The serpent that tempted Eve, too, was of the Chitterling kind, and yet it is recorded of him that he was more subtle than any beast of the field. Even so are Chitterlings. Nay, to this very hour, they hold in some universities that this same tempter was the Chitterling called Ithyphallus, into which was transformed bawdy Priapus, arch-seducer of females in paradise, that is, a garden, in Greek.
George Gascoigne. “The opinion of the author himself after all these commendations” [Gascoigne, A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, ed. Pigman III, p. 385. Spelling modernized for online quotation], 1-12.
What need I speak myself, since other say so much?
Who seem to praise these poesies so, as if there were none such?
But sure my silly self, do find therein no smell,
Which may deserve such passing praise, or seem to taste so well.
This boon I only crave, that readers yet will deign
(If any weed herein do seem, his fellow flowers to stain)
Then read but others’ works, and mark if that they find
No toys therein which may dislike, some modest reader’s mind?
Read Virgil’s Priapus, or Ovid’s wanton verse, [Virgil (?) Priapea; Ovid, Amores]
Which he, about Corinna’s couch, so clerkly can rehearse.
Read Fausto’s filthy tale, in Ariosto’s rhyme, [Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, canto XXVIII]
And let not Marot’s Alix pass, without impeach of crime. [Clément Marot, Epigrams, XV, XVI]
Thomas Nashe. The Anatomie of Absurditie (1590) (STC 18365):
I would not have any man imagine that in praising of poetry, I endeavour to approve Virgil’s unchaste Priapus or Ovid’s obscenity; I commend their wit, not their wantonness, their learning, not their lust; yet even as the bee out of the bitterest flowers and sharpest thistles gathers honey, so out of the filthiest fables may profitable knowledge be sucked and selected.
Thomas Nashe. “The Choise of Valentines” (1590), 316-17:
For loe, our thread is spun, our play is done:
Claudito iam vinos Priapa, sat prata biberunt.
[“Now, Priapus, stop the wines flowing, the meadows have drunk enough”. Farmer’s edition (1899) reads “vinos” while Mc Kerrow (1905) reinstores Virgil’s “rivos”. Nashe misquotes and parodies Virgil, Eclogues, III, 111: “claudite iam rivos, pueri: sat prata biberunt”, or, in Abraham Fleming’s translation (1589), “Now, youths, shut up the sluices close, the medes [meadows] have drunk enough”. For the assimilation of Priapus and Bacchus, see Cooper’s Thesaurus quoted above (Some secondary sources).]
John Marston. “The Authour in prayse of his precedent Poem”, 1-8, in Certaine Satyres (1598) (STC 17482):
Now Rufus, by old Glebron’s fearful mace, [Glebron: possibly for Gedeon, known as “a breaker, or destroyer” (Geneva Bible) and accordingly given Hercules’ “fearful mace”]
Hath not my Muse deserv'd a worthy place?
Come, come, Luxurio, crown my head with bays,
Which, like a Paphian, wantonly displays [Paphia: of Paphos, where Venus had a temple]
The Salaminian titillations, [Salaminian: of Salamina (or Salamis) a city on Cyprus, Venus’ island]
Which tickle up our lewd Priapians.
Is not my pen complete? Are not my lines
Right in the swaggering humor of these times?
John Marston. The Scourge of Villanie (1598) (STC 17485), “In Lectores prorsus indignos” [To quite unworthy readers], 30-46.
Gnaw, peasants, on my scraps of poesie.
Castilios, Cyprians, court-boyes, Spanish blocks, [Cyprians: of Cyprus, Venus’ island]
Ribanded ears, granado-netherstocks,
Fiddlers, Scriveners, peddlers, tinkering knaves,
Base blue-coats, tapsters, broad-cloth minded slaves,
Welcome, i’ faith, but may you n’er depart,
Till I have made your galled hides to smart.
Your galled hides? Avaunt, base muddy scum.
Think you a satyr’s dreadful sounding drum
Will brace itself? and deign to terrify
Such abject peasants’ basest roguery?
No, no, pass on, ye vain fantastic troupe
Of puffy youths; know I do scorn to stoop
To rip your lives. Then hence, lewd nags, away,
Go read each post, view what is play’d today.
Then, to Priapus’ gardens.
John Marston. The Scourge of Villanie (1598) (STC 17485), I, i: “Fronti nulla fides” [Juvenal, Satires, II, viii: Never trust a man’s face], 11-12, 18-19.
Fond physiognomer, complexion
Guides not the inward disposition,
…
Chary Casca, right pure or Rhodanus, [Rhone water, perhaps considered heavenly, as in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, XI, xx, 179, “Long Rhodanus, whose source springs from the sky”, unless the reference is to Rhodian wine ?]
Yet each night drinks in glassy Priapus. [Allusion to Juvenal, Satires, II, 95: “vitrio bibit ille priapo” (he drinks from a glass priapus)]
John Marston. The Scourge of Villanie (1598) (STC 17485), I, iii “Redde, age, quæ deinceps risisti” [Say, what have you laughed at next? (Horace, Satires, II, viii, 80], 33-44.
O grievous misery!
Luscus hath left his female luxury.
Ay, it left him; no, his old Cynic dad
Hath forc'd him clean forsake his Pickhatch drab. [Pickhatch: in Clerkenwell, a haunt of coiners, pickpockets and prostitutes]
Alack, alack, what piece of lustful flesh
Hath Luscus left, his Priape to redress?
Grieve not, good soul, he hath his Ganymede,
His perfum'd she-goat, smooth comb’d and high fed.
At Hogsdon now his monstrous lust he feasts, [Hogsdon: Hoxton, with a pun on “hog’s den”]
For there he keeps a bawdy-house of beasts.
Paphus, let Luscus have his courtesan,
Or we shall have a monster of a man.
John Marston. The Scourge of Villanie (1598) (STC 17485), II, v, “Totum in toto”, 18-21:
Rude limping lines fits this lewd, halting age;
Sweet scenting Curus, pardon then my rage,
When wizards swear plain virtue never thrives,
None but Priapus by plain dealing wives. [For probable quibble on “plain”, see The Scourge of Villanie, II, v, 85-92 below and The Maydes Metamorphosis, below.]
John Marston. The Scourge of Villanie (1598) (STC 17485), II, v, “Totum in toto”, 85-92:
How vigilant, how right obsequious
Modest in carriage, how true in trust,
And yet, alas, ne’er guerdon’d with a crust.
But now, I see, he finds by his accounts
That sole Priapus by plain dealing mounts. [For probable quibble on “plain”, see The Scourge of Villanie, II, v, 18-25 above, and The Maydes Metamorphosis, below.]
How now? what droops the new Pegasian inn? [Pegasus]
I fear mine host is honest. Tut, begin
To set up whore-house.
Anonymous (Day? Lyly?). The Maydes Metamorphosis (1599-1600, 1600) (STC 17188), III.ii.18-23:
Mopso: But, Frisco, hast not found the fair shepherdess, thy master’s mistress?
Frisco: Not I, by God, Priapus, I mean.
Ioculo: Priapus, quoth a? What in a god might that be?
Frisco: A plain god, with a good peg to hang a shepherdess’ bottle upon.
[For probable quibble on “plain”, see The Scourge of Villanie, II, v, 18-25 and 85-92 above.]
Ben Jonson. The Poetaster, or The Arraignment (1601) (STC 14781) III.iv.100-18:
Tuc: What! we must live, and honour the gods sometimes; now Bacchus, now Comus, now Priapus; every god a little.
John Marston. What you will (1601) (STC 17487), III.i.387-401.
Noose Trip: He eats well and right slovenly, and when the dice favour him, goes in good clothes, and scours his pink colour silk stockings; when he hath any money, he bears his crown, when he hath none, I carry his purse; he cheats well, swears better, but swaggers in a wanton’s chamber admirably; he loves his boy and the rump of a cramm'd capon, and this summer hath a passing thrifty humour to bottle ale; as contemptuous as Lucifer, as arrogant as ignorance can make him, as libidinous as Priapus, he keeps me as his adamant to draw metal after to his lodging. I curl his periwig, paint his cheeks, perfume his breath; I am his frotterer or rubber in a hot-house, the prop of his lies, the bearer of his false dice, and yet for all this like the Persian louse that eats biting and biting eats, so I say sithing/ and sithing [sighing and sighing, Bullen (1887)] say my end is to paste up a Si quis [“If anybody… (accepts to hire me)”]. My master’s fortunes are forc'd to cashier me and so six to one I fall to be a pippin-squire [or apple-squire: a harlot’s attendant, a pimp (OED)]. Hic finis Priami, this is the end of pick-pockets [parodic allusion to Virgil’s Aeneid, II, 554, “haec finis Priami fatorum” (this was the end of Priam’s fortunes”)]
Thomas Dekker. The Wonderfull yeare (1603) (STC 6535.5):
… on went Vertumnus [here as “god of the year”] in his lusty progress, Priapus, Flora, the Dryads, and Hamadryads, with all the wooden rabble of those that dressed orchards and gardens, perfuming all the ways that he went, with the sweet odours that breathed from flowers. [pageant symbolizing spring]
Lawrence Twine. The Patterne of Paineful Adventures (1607) (STC 710), XIII, “ How the Pirates which stole away Tharsia brought her to the city Machilenta, and sold her to a common bawd, and how she preserved her virginity”:
Then the bawd paid the money, and took the maiden and departed home, and when he came into his house, he brought her into a certain chapel where stood the idol of Priapus, made of gold, and garnished with pearls and precious stones. This idol was made after the shape of a man, with a mighty member unproportionable to the body, always erected, whom bawds and lechers do adore, making him their god, and worshipping him. Before this filthy idol he commanded Tharsia to fall down. But she answered: “God forbid, master, that I should worship such an idol. But, sir”, said she, “are you Lapsatenian [Lampsatian]?” “Why askest thou?” said the bawd. “I ask”, quoth she, “because the Lapsatenians do worship Priapus”. This spake she of simplicity, not knowing what he was. “Ah wretch”, answered he, “knowest thou not that thou art come into the house of a covetous bawd?” When Tharsia heard that, she fell down at his feet and wept, saying: “O master, take the compassion upon my virginity, and do not hire out my body for so vile a gain”. The bawd answered: “knowest thou not, that neither bawd nor hangman do regard tears or prayers?”
SHAKESPEARE. Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1606-1608, 1608)
Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger. The Virgin Martyr (1620) (STC 17644), II.i.32-39:
Hercius: Bawdy Priapus, the first schoolmaster that taught butchers how to stick pricks in flesh, and make it swell, thou knowest was the only ningle that I cared for under the moon, but since I left him to follow a scurvy lady, what with her praying and our fasting, if now I come to a wench and offer to use her any thing hardly — telling her, being a Christian, she must endure — she presently handles me as if I were a clove, and cleaves me with disdain as if I were a calf’s head.
Thomas Middleton. A Game at Chess (1624) (STC 17882), I.i.297-98:
Priapus, guardian of the cherry gardens,
Bacchus’ and Venus’ chit, is not more vicious.
Thomas Heywood. The Hierarchie of the blessed Angells (1635) (STC 13327), I, “The Seraphim”, 191-97:
Fertile Sicilia no goddess knows,
Save Proserpine: Th’ Elæans, Pluto make [Eleans, inhabitants of Elis]
Their sovereign: And the Boetians take
The Muses for their guardians. All that dwell
Near to the Hellespont, think none t’excell
Save Priapus. In Rhodes, Saturn hath praise;
Osiris, above all, th’ Egyptians raise.
How to cite
Frédéric Delord. "Priapus." 2009. In A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology (2009-), ed. Yves Peyré. http://www.shakmyth.org/myth/257/priapus
<< back to top >>