EROTICA ROMANA

Johann Wolfgang Goethe




I

Here's where I've planted my garden and here I shall care for love's blossoms--

As I am taught by my muse, carefully sort them in plots:

Fertile branches, whose product is golden fruit of my lifetime,

Set here in happier years, tended with pleasure today.

You, stand here at my side, good Priapus--albeit from thieves I've

Nothing to fear. Freely pluck, whosoever would eat.

--Hypocrites, those are the ones! If weakened with shame and bad conscience

One of those criminals comes, squinting out over my garden,

Bridling at nature's pure fruit, punish the knave in his hindparts,

Using the stake which so red rises there at your loins.