ritual · Roman

Prayer to Bacchus and Ceres

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.

Commentarius · Commentary

The opening of Tibullus' elegy on the Ambarvalia — the rite of purifying the fields, in which the victim is led around the boundary.

The gods are being dressed here. Bacchus is invited to let a sweet cluster hang from his horns, Ceres to bind her temples with ears of corn. The poet is costuming them for the festival, and the attributes function as clothing.

Behind the seam the rite is shown already in motion: the lamb going to the gleaming altars, the white-robed crowd behind it with olive in their hair. And then the formula itself: "we purify the fields, we purify the farmers: do you drive evil from our boundaries".

The construction is the same as in Claudian (apollo-004): prayer that is half stage direction. Only there the Sun was being dressed for a consular inauguration, and here the country gods are being dressed for a country feast.

Fons · Source

AuthorTibullus

WorkElegiae

Section2.1.3-4; 17-20

Period1st c. BC

Occasionfield purification / Ambarvalia

Classificatio · Taxonomy

CultureRoman

Formritual

DeitiesBacchus, Ceres

FunctionsInvocation · Petition · Protection

SphereAgricultural · Civic