An Offering to Priapus

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vi, 192

Worn out, the old fisherman
drapes on the Priapus
figurine all the tools of his trade:

remnants of his seine
through which the fishes
large and small, swam free;

the baskets in which
he carried his catch to market;
the conversation-hook
on a horse-hair line
that had never failed him;
the well-made trap
that lured the beauties in;
the trusty float, ever
and always upright atop
the water, marking for all
his hidden casts below.

Round rocks the tide reveals
no longer bear his tread,
nor does the kissing tide lull
his slumber on the soft sands
where this one or that one
siren-sighed, “Phyntilus,
     Oh, Phyntilus!”

Now, from a hilltop
he just watches.
The flat and finless

sea is done with him.