Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/153

 TO PRIAPUS—(1884?)

In Martial's works (VI—16) this poem appears under the title "Ad Priapum." Priapus, as the deity symbolizing the fruitfulness of nature, was the recipient of the first fruits and the first flowers, and his image with the significance of regeneration often appeared on the tombs of the ancient world. To him, therefore, Martial addresses himself in this invocation on behalf of the dead.

The entire tenor of the verses, the desire that none but children shall enter the "green enclosure," would seem to indicate that this too was a poem for the beloved "Erotion;" and although Stevenson has lengthened the four lines of the Latin into six lines of English, and has taken the liberty in the fifth line of naming a definite age, he nevertheless preserves the spirit and the sentiment of the original.

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