Wednesday, June 06, 2012
An Offering to Priapus
A poem by Hilda Doolittle, or H.D. (1886-1961), is variously titled Priapus Keeper-of-Orchards or Orchard. I'm interested in the offering to Priapus in the last two stanzas (lines 17-31):
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O rough-hewnI don't know if anyone has ever pointed it out, but the gifts in lines 23-30 closely recall those in an anonymous poem from the Greek Anthology (6.22; tr. W.R. Paton):
god of the orchard,
I bring you an offering—
do you, alone unbeautiful, 20
son of the god,
spare us from loveliness:
these fallen hazel-nuts,
stripped late of their green sheaths,
grapes, red-purple, 25
their berries
dripping with wine,
pomegranates already broken,
and shrunken figs
and quinces untouched, 30
I bring you as offering.
The fruit-watcher dedicated to rustic Priapus, carved out of a trunk, this sacrifice from the trees, a newly split pomegranate, this quince covered with fresh down, a navelled fig with wrinkled skin, a purple cluster of thick-set grapes, fountain of wine, and a walnut just out of its green rind.Cf. also Greek Anthology 6.102 (by Philippus; tr. W.R. Paton):
Ἀρτιχανῆ ῥοιάν τε, καὶ ἀρτίχνουν τόδε μῆλον,
καὶ ῥυτιδόφλοιον σῦκον ἐπομφάλιον,
πορφύρεόν τε βότρυν μεθυπίδακα, πυκνορρᾶγα,
καὶ κάρυον χλωρῆς ἀρτίδορον λεπίδος,
ἀγροιώτῃ τῷδε μονοστόρθυγγι Πριήπῳ
θῆκεν ὁ καρποφύλαξ, δενδριακὴν θυσίην.
To thee, Priapus, who lovest the Wayfarer, did the gardener Lamon, praying that his trees and his own limbs may flourish, dedicate a yellow-coated pomegranate, figs wrinkled like old men, half-ripe reddening grapes plucked from a cluster, a sweet-scented quince with a fleece of fine down, a walnut peeping from its green outer skin, a cucumber wont to lie embedded in its leaves with the bloom on it, and a golden-smocked olive already ripe.A κάρυον is any kind of nut. Paton chose to translate it by walnut, H.D. by hazel-nut.
Ῥοιὴν ξανθοχίτωνα, γεραιόφλοιά τε σῦκα,
καὶ ῥοδέας σταφυλῆς ὠμὸν ἀποσπάδιον,
μῆλὸν θ᾽ ἡδύπνουν λεπτῇ πεποκωμένον ἄχνῃ,
καὶ κάρυον χλωρῶν ἐκφανὲς ἐκ λεπίδων,
καὶ σίκυον χνοάοντα, τὸν ἐν φύλλοις πεδοκοίτην,
καὶ πέρκην ἤδη χρυσοχίτων᾽ ἐλάην,
σοί, φιλοδῖτα Πρίηπε, φυτοσκάφος ἄνθετο Λάμων,
δένδρεσι καὶ γυίοις εὐξάμενος θαλέθειν.
7 Δάμων Brunck