Look at any picture of Priapus from antiquity, and you will see why he might have had trouble focusing on anything beyond his own anatomy. One fresco in Pompeii shows him fully occupied with the task of weighing his gigantic erection on scales.25 He raises his filthy hopes, Ovid continues, and tries to sneak up on her, heart racing, on tiptoe (I find myself wondering how he doesn’t tip up,
