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Prayers to Bacchus

15 prayers

Bacchus is kept apart from Dionysus here, because the sources keep them apart. The Roman god is addressed in Latin poetry — Horace, Ovid, Statius — as the giver of wine and the patron of poets who admit the debt. The senate's suppression of the Bacchanalia in 186 BC stands behind these texts as the thing not being said.

What is asked
Fontes · Sources
  • Horace · Carmina2
  • Ovid · Fasti2
  • Ovid · Metamorphoses2
  • Tibullus · Elegiae2
  • Virgil · Georgics2
  • Anonymous · Flores Carmina1
  • Caesius Bassius · Hymn of Callimachus1
  • Grattius · Cynegetica1
  • Propertius · Elegiae1
  • Seneca · Oedipus1
Orationes · The texts
  1. 001

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Seneca · Oedipus · 403-441; 503-508

    Let the people's hymn sound with the praise of Bacchus. Bind your streaming locks with the nodding ivy, and in your soft hands grasp the Nysaean thyrsus! Bright glory of the sky, come hither to the prayers which thine own illustrious Thebes, O Bacchus, offers to thee with suppliant hands. Hither turn with favour thy virginal face; with thy star-bright countenance drive away the clouds, the grim threats of Erebus, and greedy fate. Thee it becomes to circle thy locks with flowers of the springtime, thee to cover thy head with Tyrian turban, or thy smooth brow to wreathe with the ivy's clustering berries; now to fling loose thy lawless-streaming locks, again to bind them in a knot close-drawn; in such guise as when, fearing thy stepdame's wrath, thou didst grow to manhood with false-seeming limbs, a pretended maiden with golden ringlets, with saffron girdle binding thy garments. So thereafter this soft vesture has pleased thee, folds loose hanging and the long-trailing mantle. Seated in thy golden chariot, thy lions with long trappings covered, all the vast coast of the Orient saw thee, both he who drinks of the Ganges and whoever breaks the ice of snowy Araxes. On an unseemly ass old Silenus attends thee, his swollen temples bound with ivy garlands; while thy wanton initiates lead the mystic revels. Along with thee a troop of Bassarids in Edonian dance beat the ground, now on Mount Pangaeus' peak, now on the top of Thracian Pindus; now midst Cadmean dames has come a maenad, the impious comrade of Ogygian Bacchus, with sacred fawn-skins girt about her loins, her hand a light thyrsus brandishing. Their hearts maddened by thee, the matrons have set their hair a-flowing;

    RomanInvocationPraise
  2. 002

    Prayer to Bacchus and Liber

    Ovid · Metamorphoses · 4.11-17; 31

    Bacchus they call you, and Bromius, and Lyaeus, born in fire, and Savior also, who alone was born of two mothers. Revered as a God in Nyseus, unshorn Thyoneus, joyful Lenaeus, the sower of grapes, Lord of Nocturnal Revelries, the Bullroarer, and by many more names, Liber, are You known among the Greeks. Adored for your eternal youth, a youth everlasting, you the most beautiful among the celestial Gods high above, to You are sacrifices made when You, without horns upon Your most virgin head, are near and lend us Your assistance. Arising victorious in the East, illuminating those distant lands faded in memory, to outermost India as far as the banks of the Ganges. Calm and mild, may you come to us.

    RomanInvocationPraise
  3. 003

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Propertius · Elegiae · 3.17.1-10

    O Bacchus, humbly now I approach Your altar. Grant tranquil seas for me, Father, and a fair wind in my sails. You are able to tame even the rages of Venus; Your wine a cure for our sorrows. By You are lovers bound to one another; by You are their bonds dissolved.

    RomanPetitionDedicationInvocation
  4. 004

    Prayer to Bacchus and Ceres

    Tibullus · Elegiae · 2.1.3-4; 17-20

    Come to us, Bacchus, with clusters of grapes dangling from your horns, and you, too, Ceres, a wreath of newly ripened wheat for your temples, come! Gods of our fathers, we purify our farmers and our fruitful fields; we ask that you drive away harm from our borders. Let not the now sprouting plants succumb before harvest, let not the timid lambs be outrun by swift wolves.

    RomanInvocationPetitionProtection
  5. 005

    Prayer to Bacchus and Liber

    Ovid · Fasti · III.713-714

    There's a popular festival of Bacchus, on the third day after the Ides. Bacchus, favour the poet who sings your feast.

    RomanPetition
  6. 006

    Prayer to Bacchus and Liber

    Ovid · Fasti · 3.789-790

    Father, turn your mild head here, and gentle horns, and spread the sails of my art to a favourable breeze.

    RomanPetition
  7. 007

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Ovid · Metamorphoses · 11.131-132

    Forgive me, Father Bacchus, I was mistaken, but have pity, I pray, and command that I should be torn from your beauty!

    RomanPetition
  8. 008

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Tibullus · Elegiae · 3.6.1-4

    Splendid Liber, draw near to me! With your forever mystical vine, and your ivy bound head, carry off my sorrows, in the same manner as you have so often used wine's healing powers to overcome the pangs of love.

    RomanPetitionInvocation
  9. 009

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Virgil · Georgics · 2.2-8

    Now shall I sing of you, Bacchus. Without you there would be no woodland or thicket, or slow growing olive grove. Come hither, O Lenaean Father, all things here beckon to be nurtured by your many gifts, the autumn vineshoots laden the countryside with blossoms, the vintage grape harvest foams plentiful to the lips of the wine vats. Hasten, O Lenaean Father, come and, stripped down, tinge your naked feet in new wine must with me.

    RomanInvocationPraise
  10. 010

    Prayer to Ceres

    Virgil · Georgics · 1.7-12

    Liber and gentle Ceres, if by your gifts the earth once changed, exchanging Chaonian acorns for rich heads of grain, and receiving your invention of wine from Acheloian cups, and you Fauns, your divine presence an aid for rustics, bring dancing feet, as when Dryad girls frolic with Fauns, of your gifts I sing.

    RomanInvocationPraise
  11. 011

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Caesius Bassius · Hymn of Callimachus

    Come, O Lyaeus, bihorned Bassareus, two-mothered Maenalius, come into this place I prepare with sleek, shiny hair. May You arouse with a crown of ivy and golden clusters of grapes, and bear shaft of new green wood, O Gentle One, may You come to this altar, Bacchus, Bacchus, Bacchus.

    RomanInvocation
  12. 012

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Anonymous · Flores Carmina · 2

    Bacchus, inventor of vines, may you arrive full of wines, may you pour forth the sweet liquid, to be compared with nectar, and make the old pleasant, and turned to another use, may it not lead harsh flavor to our spiteful veins.

    RomanInvocationPetition
  13. 013

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Grattius · Cynegetica · 475-476

    Liber expels light cares from the heart, Liber brings soothing relief from distress. Liber expels pains from the chest, Liber bears medicine to soothe a fever.

    RomanPraise
  14. 014

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Horace · Carmina · 2.19.7-8

    Euhoe! Save me Liber, spare me grave master of the fearful ivy-rod.

    RomanPetitionInvocation
  15. 015

    Prayer to Bacchus

    Horace · Carmina · 3.25.18-20

    In spring, O Lenaeus Bacchus, I follow You, a god wreathed with ivy.

    RomanPraiseInvocation
Invoked alongside
Liber4Ceres2Ariadne1Palaemon1Phoebus1the Fauns1
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