A DITHYRAMBIC, OR DRINKING SONG.
Horace
I saw Bacchus (believe it, posterity) dictating strains among the remote
rocks, and the nymphs learning them, and the ears of the goat-footed
satyrs all attentive. Evoe! my mind trembles with recent dread, and my
soul, replete with Bacchus, has a tumultuous joy, Evoe! spare me,
Bacchus; spare me, thou who art formidable for thy dreadful thyrsus. It
is granted me to sing the wanton Bacchanalian priestess, and the
fountain of wine, and rivulets flowing with milk, and to tell again of
the honeys distilling from the hollow trunks. It is granted me likewise
to celebrate the honor added to the constellations by your happy spouse,
and the palace of Pentheus demolished with no light ruin, and the
perdition of Thracian. Lycurgus. You command the rivers, you the
barbarian sea. You, moist with wine, on lonely mountain-tops bind the
hair of your Thracian priestesses with a knot of vipers without hurt.
You, when the impious band of giants scaled the realms of father Jupiter
through the sky, repelled Rhoetus, with the paws and horrible jaw of the
lion-shape [you had assumed]. Thou, reported to be better fitted for
dances, and jokes and play, you were accounted insufficient for fight;
yet it then appeared, you, the same deity, was the mediator of peace and
war. Upon you, ornamented with your golden horn, Orberus innocently
gazed, gently wagging his tail; and with his triple tongue licked your
feet and legs, as you returned.
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