Carmina Priapea

The garden god Priapus, depicted as a wooden statue with an oversized, red-painted phallus and a sickle in his hand, is said to ward off thieves. His obscene appearance has repeatedly inspired Greek and Latin poets to write more or less suggestive poems about him. An unknown poet, probably from the 2nd century AD, went the furthest in a book of poems dedicated to Priapus, carefully composed and intertextually linked with classical poetry, in which the god 'punishes' the intruders in his realm in three different ways with the 'weapon' sticking out from him. In addition to this book, called Corpus Priapeorum, the volume contains the Priapus poems of older and more recent poets, including Theocritus, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, Petron and Prudentius with explanatory notes. The introduction provides information on the Priapus cult and categorises the texts in terms of literary history; an essay on the very rich influence of Priapus poetry since the early modern period deals with the reception by Lessing and Goethe, among others.

Niklas Holzberg, Munich, Germany.