Classic Poem

What conscience has Venus drunk? Our inebriated beauties
Can't tell head from tail at those midnight oyster suppers
When the best wine's laced with perfume, and tossed down neat
From a foaming conch-shell, while the dizzy ceiling
Spins round, and the tables dance, and each light shows double.
Why, you may ask yourself, does the notorious Maura
Sniff at the air in that knowing, derisive way
As she and her dear friend Tullia pass by the ancient altar
Of Chastity? and what is Tullia whispering to her?
Here, at night, they stagger out of their litters
And relieve themselves, pissing in long hard bursts
All over the Goddess's statue. Then, while the Moon
Looks down on their motions, they take turns to ride each other,
And finally go home. So you, next morning,
On your way to some great house, will splash through your wife's piddle.
Notorious, too, are the ritual mysteries
Of the Good Goddess, when flute-music stirs the loins,
And frenzied women, devotees of Priapus,
Sweep along in procession, howling, tossing their hair,
Wine-flown, horn-crazy, burning with the desire
To get themselves laid. Hark at the way they whinny
In mounting lust, see that copious flow, the pure
And vintage wine of passion, that splashes their thighs!
Off goes Saufeia's wreath, she challenges the call-girls
To a contest of bumps and grinds, emerges victorious,
But herself is eclipsed in turn—an admiring loser—
By the liquid movements of Medullina's buttocks:
So the ladies, with a display of talent to match their birth,
Win all the prizes. No make-belief here, no pretence,
Each act is performed in earnest, and guaranteed
To warm the age-chilled balls of a Nestor or a Priam.