Odes Book 2. 19

Horace’s reverence to Bacchus

by Horace

In this hymn to Bacchus, a God he often addresses, Horace achieves a powerful impression of intoxication which feels as though it owes something to spirituality and devotion, as well as to wine. It is packed with mythological reference, from Bacchus’s playful tricks with devotees’ hair to the desperate battle of the Gods to save Olympus from the assault of the Titans. The Thyiadae are Bacchantes, the God’s female devotees. The wife honoured by her crown becoming a constellation was Ariadne, who saved Theseus from the Cretan labyrinth. In the last stanza not even Cerberus, the watchdog of Hades, can resist this awe-inspiring but loveable God – see William Blake’s painting of Cerberus in the illustrated blog post here.

Metre: Alcaic

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Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus
vidi docentem, credite posteri,
Nymphasque discentis et auris
capripedum Satyrorum acutas.

euhoe, recenti mens trepidat metu,
plenoque Bacchi pectore turbidum
laetatur. euhoe, parce Liber,
parce gravi metuende thyrso.

fas pervicacis est mihi Thyiadas
vinique fontem lactis et uberes
cantare rivos atque truncis
lapsa cavis iterare mella;

fas et beatae coniugis additum
stellis honorem tectaque Penthei
disiecta non leni ruina
Thracis et exitium Lycurgi.

tu flectis amnis, tu mare barbarum,
tu separatis uvidus in iugis
nodo coerces viperino
Bistonidum sine fraude crinis.

tu, cum parentis regna per arduum
cohors gigantum scanderet inpia,
Rhoetum retorsisti leonis
unguibus horribilique mala;

quamquam choreis aptior et iocis
ludoque dictus non sat idoneus
pugnae ferebaris; sed idem
pacis eras mediusque belli.

te vidit insons Cerberus aureo
cornu decorum leniter atterens
caudam et recedentis trilingui
ore pedes tetigitque crura.

I saw Bacchus on the distant crags teaching songs and the Nymphs who learned them, and the pointed ears of the goat-footed Satyrs: believe it, you who are yet to come!

Euoi, my mind reels with the freshness of my fear, and in my breast, possessed by Bacchus, confused rejoicing reigns. Euoi, spare me, Bacchus, spare me from the terrible weight of your staff!

It is right that I should sing of the unwearying Bacchantes, the fountain of wine and the rich streams of milk, and tell of the honey that drips from the hollows of trees;

right and holy to tell of the honour to your wife added to the constellations, of Pentheus’s house destroyed by the most crushing ruin, and of the doom of Thracian Lycurgus.

You change the course of rivers and the savage sea; flushed with wine, on remote mountain ridges you dress the hair of the Thracian women with a harmless knot of serpents.

You, when the sacrilegious gang of Titans climbed the steeps to your Father’s realm, wrenched back Rhoetus with your lion-talons and fearful maw;

supposed to be better suited to dance and merriment, and thought less well equipped for battle, yet you were the same in the midst of peace and war.

Cerberus looked on you and gave no harm, gorgeous with your horn of gold, and, gently wrapping you with his tail as you passed, licked your feet and legs with all three tongues.

`

More Poems by Horace

  1. Horace’s limitations
  2. Diffugere nives
  3. Roman values for the new age
  4. Horace the swan
  5. Lalage is too young
  6. A Prayer to the poetry-God
  7. Jupiter’s authority, and Caesar’s
  8. Horace, the wolf and the upright life
  9. An oath to Maecenas
  10. Postumus, the years slip by
  11. The consolations of wine
  12. Celebrating Neptune’s feast day
  13. An invitation to Maecenas
  14. Locked out
  15. Horace’s first Ode
  16. Augustus returns
  17. New temples, new morals
  18. Some advice for Dellius
  19. A day off for rain
  20. The pleasures and dangers of wine
  21. Last love
  22. Glycera
  23. A country sacrifice
  24. The Golden Mean
  25. Neobule
  26. A Farewell to arms
  27. Curse you, tree!
  28. Carpe diem, Sestius
  29. A dedication to Diana
  30. Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem
  31. Fortuna
  32. Leave the cares of state, Maecenas
  33. Courage and decadence: the Regulus ode
  34. Luxury versus the simple life
  35. Poetry, the giver of immortality
  36. Licymnia
  37. Nereus prophesies the Trojan War
  38. The fleeting years slip by
  39. Iccius goes soldiering
  40. Relief from care
  41. A change of mind
  42. Lyce grows old
  43. Give me comfort, not riches
  44. Late stirrings
  45. Caesar’s safe return
  46. Horace’s Chloe
  47. Rome: disaster and salvation
  48. O Fons Bandusiae
  49. A prayer to Faunus
  50. Numida’s back
  51. Horace’s Cleopatra ode
  52. Pollio’s histories of civil war
  53. Horace returns to lyric poetry
  54. The victories of Drusus and Tiberius
  55. A tactful compliment
  56. Valgius and Mystes
  57. Stormy seas
  58. The lust for money versus the simple life
  59. Don’t trust Barine
  60. Jealousy
  61. Love lost and found
  62. A plea for burial
  63. Lydia’s tragedy
  64. What Roman youth should be
  65. Horace’s wine
  66. Horace’s monument
  67. Horace welcomes his army comrade
  68. Pyrrha
  69. Love a slave-girl? Oh, Xanthias!
  70. An invocation to the lyre
  71. Unrequited love
  72. The tug-of-war for Nearchus
  73. Lovely mother, lovelier daughter
  74. Poscimur
  75. A call for a moral renaissance
  76. Mourning for a good man
  77. Horace rests from his labours
  78. A garland from the Muses
  79. Wealth should be used, not hoarded
  80. Pindar and Augustus
  81. Romulus in Heaven
  82. Horace the peacemaker
  83. Here’s to Murena!
  84. Don’t worry, be happy
  85. A prayer to Venus
  86. Tibur or Tarentum: a poet’s dilemma?
  87. Gyges’s constancy
  88. Housman and Horace
  89. The final ode
  90. Europa’s lament
  91. Diana and Apollo: a hymn
  92. Horace, accepted bard of Rome
  93. Horace’s prayer to a wine-jar
  94. Augustus, master of the world
  95. Be your age, Chloris!
  96. The country is best
  97. Soracte
  98. Awe for the Gods
  99. Horace’s fame and Apollo’s gift
  100. Romulus becomes a God
  101. A divine inspiration
  102. A prayer to Mercury
    103. View Latin Poems
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