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[[File:Francisco_de_Goya_-_The_Sacrifice_to_Priapus_(1771).jpg |thumb| ''Aberzh da Briapos'', gant [[Goya]]. ]]
'''Priapos''' (Πρίαπος e [[gregach]]) a oa un [[doue]] a eil renk, unan eus doueed ar frouezhusted, diwaller ar chatal, ar gwez-frouezh, liorzhoù, hahag binvioù engehentiñ[[ardivink-genel]] ar baotred e mojennoù [[Hellaz]] kozh. E mojennoù ''[[RomaMutinus Mutunus]]'' e oa anvetanv Priapos e mojennoù [[Mutinus MutunusRoma]].
Anavezet mat e oa abalamour d'e vell [[kalc'h]], bepred sonn, ma komzer hiriv eus [[priapelezh]]. E liorzhoù bras Roma e veze lakaet delwennoù koad dezhañ (anvet ''hermai''), e koad fiez, livet ene [[ruz]], da spontañ [[bran|brini]], da gas kuit ar wallchañs.
Un doue hudur e oa ivez met ne anave ket ar blijadur nag ar speriusted evitañ e-unan.
==Mojenn==
Ganet e oa e Lamsakos, war lez an [[Hellespont]], en [[Azia]]. Mab e oa da [[Afrodite]], ha da [[Dionisos |Zionisos]] pe, hervez doareoù all, da [[Hermes]], pe [[Adonis]], pe [[Zeus]] zoken, pe [[Pan]], hervez an oberourien<ref>"Priapus". ''The Oxford Companion to World Mythology''. David Leeming. Oxford University Press, 2004.</ref> .<br />
Dont a ra e galc'h bras eus drougiezh [[Hera]], a oa gwarizi enni abalamour da gened Afrodite. Hag ar vamm gaezh, gant ar vezh, a laoskas he mab da vagañ gant mesaerien ha ne spontent ket rak e venveg.
Hervez oberourien all e oa koshoc'h, un [[Titan]] anezhañ, hag a oa bet karget gant [[Hera]] da gelenn an armoù da [[Ares]]. Un doue hudur eo. ▼
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According to legend, [[Hera]] cursed him with impotence, ugliness and foul-mindedness while he was still in Aphrodite's womb, in revenge for the hero [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]] having the temerity to judge Aphrodite more beautiful than Hera.
The other gods refused to allow him to live on [[Mount Olympus]] and threw him down to Earth, where he was brought up by shepherds.
Priapus joined Pan and the [[satyr]]s as a spirit of fertility and growth, though he was perennially frustrated by his impotence. He attempted to rape the nymph [[Lotis]] but was thwarted by an [[donkey|ass]], whose braying caused him to lose his erection at the critical moment and woke Lotis. He pursued the nymph until the gods took pity on her and turned her into a [[lotus tree|lotus]] plant. The episode gave him a lasting hatred of asses and a willingness to see them killed in his honour. <ref>"Priapus." ''Who's Who in Classical Mythology'', Routledge. 2002.</ref> In the end, his lust gave him a permanent [[erection]] and his penis grew so large that he was unable to move.<ref name="bloomsbury">"Priapus." Bloomsbury Dictionary of Myth. 1996.</ref>
==Worship and attributes==
The first extant mention of Priapus is in the eponymous comedy ''Priapus'', written in the fourth century BC by [[Xenarchus]]. Originally worshipped by Greek colonists in [[Lampsacus]] in [[Asia Minor]], the cult of Priapus spread to mainland Greece and eventually to Italy during the third century BC.<ref name="ocd">Robert Christopher Towneley Parker. "Priapus". ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary.'' Ed. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. Oxford University Press 2003.</ref> [[Lucian]] (''De saltatione'') tells that in [[Bithynia]] Priapus was accounted as a warlike god, a rustic tutor to the infant [[Ares]]. [[Arnobius]] is aware of the importance accorded Priapus in this region near the [[Hellespont]].<ref>In ridiculing the literal aspects of pagan gods given human form, he mentions "the Hellespontian Priapus bearing about among the goddesses, virgin and matron, those parts ever prepared for encounter." (Arnobius, ''Seven Books against the Heathen'' III.10 ([http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1008/_P3.HTM on-line text]).</ref> Also, Pausanias notes:
:"''This god is worshipped where goats and sheep pasture or there are swarms of bees; but by the people of Lampsacus he is more revered than any other god, being called by them a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite."''<ref>Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' IX.312.</ref>
Outside his "home" region in Asia Minor, Priapus was regarded as something of a joke by urban dwellers. However, he played a more important role in the countryside, where he was seen as a guardian deity. He was regarded as the patron god of sailors and fishermen and others in need of good luck, and his presence was believed to avert the [[evil eye]].<ref>"Priapus." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007</ref>
Priapus does not appear to have had an organised cult and was mostly worshipped in gardens or homes, though there are attestations of temples dedicated to the god. His sacrificial animal was the [[ass]], reflecting his lustful nature, but agricultural offerings (such as fruit, flowers, vegetables and fish) were also very common.<ref name="ocd" />
Long after the fall of Rome and the rise of [[Christianity]], Priapus continued to be used as a symbol of health and fertility. The [[13th century]] [[Lanercost Chronicle]], a history of northern England and Scotland, records a "lay [[Cistercian]] brother" erecting a statue of Priapus (''simulacrum Priapi statuere'') in a bid to end an outbreak of cattle disease.<ref>Yves Bonnefoy, ''Roman and European Mythologies'', pp. 139-142. University of Chicago Press, 1992. ISBN 0226064557</ref>
==Depictions==
[[Image:Musée Picardie Archéo 03.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Roman statuette of Priapus discovered in France. It is made in two parts, with the top section revealing a giant phallus when removed.]]
Priapus' iconic attribute was his ithyphallicism (permanently erect [[penis]]); he probably absorbed some pre-existing ithyphallic deities as his cult developed. He was represented in a variety of ways, most commonly as a misshapen gnome-like figure with an enormous erect phallus. Statues of Priapus were common in ancient Greece and Rome, standing in gardens or at doorways and crossroads. To propitiate Priapus, the traveller would stroke the statue's penis as he passed by. The [[Athens|Athenians]] often conflated Priapus with [[Hermes]], the god of boundaries, and depicted a hybrid deity with a winged helmet, sandals and huge erection.<ref name="bloomsbury" />
Statues of Priapus were often hung with signs bearing [[epigram]]s, collected in ''Priapeia'' ([[Priapus#In literature|treated below]]), which threatened sexual violence towards transgressors of the boundaries that he protected:
:''Percidere, puer, moneo; futuere, puella;''
:''barbatum furem tertia poena manet.''
:''Femina si furtum faciet mihi virve puerve,''
:''haec cunnum, caput hic praebeat, ille nates.''
:''Per medios ibit pueros mediasque puellas''
:''mentula, barbatis non nisi summa petet.''
:I warn you, boy, you will be screwed; girl, you will be fucked; a third penalty awaits the bearded thief.
:If a woman steals from me, or a man, or a boy, let the first give me her cunt, the second his head, the third his buttocks.
:My dick will go through the middle of boys and the middle of girls, but with bearded men it will aim only for the top.<ref>Craig A. Williams, ''Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity'', p. 21. Oxford University Press US, 1999. ISBN 0195125053</ref>
Another example comes from the works of [[Martial]]:
:I am not hewn from fragile [[elm]], nor is my member which stands stiff with a rigid shaft made from just any old wood. It is begotten from everlasting [[cypress]], which fears not the passage of a hundred celestial ages nor the decay of advanced years. Fear this, evil doer, whoever you are. If your thieving rod harms the smallest shoots of this here vine, like it or not, this cypress rod will penetrate [i.e. sodomise] and plant a fig in you. <ref>Quoted in Eric Csapo, ''Theories of Mythology'', p. 168. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0631232486</ref>
A number of Roman paintings of Priapus have survived from ancient times. One of the most famous such images of Priapus is that from the [[House of the Vettii]] in [[Pompeii]]. A [[fresco]] depicts the god weighing his phallus against a bag full of money; it appears that his phallus is heavier. In nearby [[Herculaneum]], an excavated snack bar has a painting of Priapus behind the bar, apparently as a good-luck symbol for the customers.
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==El lennegezh==
Un doareoù barzhonegoù zo anvet ''Priapeia'', diwar anv Priapus.
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The genre shows how Roman poets in particular invented comic and obscene situations for him, giving him more literary prominence than he enjoyed in rites or cult, though masked phallic figures were prominent on many festive occasions, both in Greece and in the wider Roman world.
In [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Fasti]]'',<ref>Fasti, 6.319ff.</ref> the [[nymph]] [[Lotis]] fell into a drunk slumber at a feast, and Priapus seized this opportunity to advance upon her. With stealth he approached, and just before he could embrace her, [[Silenus]]'s donkey alerted the party with "raucous braying". Lotis awoke and pushed Priapus away, but her only true escape was to be transformed into the [[lotus tree]]. To punish the donkey for spoiling his opportunity, Priapus beat the ass to death with his large penis. In later versions of the story, Lotis is replaced with the virginal goddess [[Hestia]]. Ovid's anecdote served to explain why donkeys were sacrificed to Priapus in the city of [[Lampsacus]] on the Hellespont, where he was worshipped among the offspring of [[Hermes]].<ref>[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'', 160.</ref>
Priapus is mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer's [[The Merchant's Tale]], part of the [[Canterbury Tales]].
During a description of a garden that the protagonist, Januarie, creates, Priapus is invoked in his form as God of gardens:<blockquote>
Ne Priapus ne myghte nat suffise,
Though he be God of gardyns, for to telle
The beautee of the gardyn and the welle,
That stood under a laurer alwey grene. <ref>G. Chaucer, ''The Merchant's Prologue and Tale'', (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006), p63</ref>,
</blockquote>
Priapus serves to remind the reader, or listening audience, that Januarie's intentions are driven by lust and not love.
==Modern derivations==
===Medical terminology===
The medical condition [[priapism]] derives its name from Priapus, alluding to the god's permanently engorged penis.
===Natural history===
The group of worm-like marine burrowing animals known as the [[Priapulida|Priapulidea]], literally "penis worms", also derives its name from Priapus.
===Popular Culture===
It has been suggested by some scholars that the modern popular [[garden gnome]] is a descendant of Priapus. <ref>Peter D. Arnott, ''An Introduction to the Roman World.'' London: MacMillan, 1970.</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
▲Hervez oberourien all e oa koshoc'h, un [[Titan]] anezhañ, hag a oa bet karget gant [[Hera ]] da gelenn an armoù da [[Ares]]. Un doue hudur eo.
[[Category:Fertility gods]]
[[Category:Greek gods]]
[[Category:Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Sexuality in ancient Rome]]
[[Category:Dionysus]]
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==Azen==
Aberzh un [[azen]] a blij dezhañ.<br />
Un noz, p'edo o vont da wallañ [[Hestia]], e voe lakaet an doueez war ziwall gant hinnoadenn un azen. Da zeiz lid Hestia e vez bleuniet pennoù an ezen.<br />
Met un displegadur all a zo d'eda gasoni ouzhPriaposouzh an ezen : tabutatabut a oa bet etrezañ hag un azen a oa bet roet ar gomz dezhañ gant an doue Dionisos, war-lerc'h un tamm skoazell en doa roet d'an doue. Kaoz a oa eus pegen hir e oa o c'halc'h. An azen ne oa ket evit Priapos, ha bazhataet e voe gant e enebour betek ar marv.
{{Commons|Category:Priapus}}
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