Prayer to Bacchus
BacchusNow 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.
The opening of the second book of the Georgics — the one about the vine.
The invitation ends by asking the god to take off his boots and get into the vat: "come here, O father Lenaeus, and with your buskins stripped off stain your bare legs with me in the new must".
Cothurni are the tragic actor's boots, a mark of high dignity. He is asked to remove them. And mecum, "with me": the poet places himself beside the god in the winepress, barefoot.
The whole ethic of the Georgics is in that one line. The divine is met not in a rite and not in a temple but in work — and it is recognised by being stained with must like everyone else.
Fons · Source
AuthorVirgil
WorkGeorgics
Section2.2-8
PeriodAugustan
Classificatio · Taxonomy
CultureRoman
Formliterary
DeitiesBacchus
FunctionsInvocation · Praise
SphereAgricultural · Arts & Poetry