Bacchus and Nymphs delight, O mighty God! Whom Cynthia gave to rule the blooming wood. Lesbos and verdant Thasos thee adore, And Lydians, in loose flowing dress implore, And raise devoted temples to thy power. Thou Dryad’s joy, and Bacchus’s guardian, hear My conscious prayer, with an attentive ear. My hands with guiltless blood I never stain’d, Or sacrilegiously the gods prophan’d. To feeble me, restoring blessings send, I did not thee, with my whole self offend. Who sins thro’ weakness is less guilty thought, Be pacify’d, and spare a venial fault. On me, when smiling fate shall smiling gifts bestow, I’ll not ungrateful to thy godhead go. A destined goat shall on thy altar lye, And the horn’d parent of my flock shall dye. A sucking pig appease thy injur’d shrine, And hallow’d bowls o’re-flow with generous wine. Then thrice thy frantick votaries shall round Thy temple dance, with youth and garlands crown’d, In holy drunkenness thy orgies sound. While I was thus at prayers, an old woman, with her hair about her eyes, and disfigur’d with a mournful habit, coming in, disturb’d my devotions; when taking hold of me, she drew all fear out of the entry; and “what hag,” said she, “has devour’d your manhood? Or what ominous carcase have you stumbl’d over in your nightly walks? You have not acquitted your self above a boy; but faint, weak, and like a horse o’re-charg’d in a steep, tyr’d have lost your toyl and sweat; nor content to sin alone, but have unreveng’d against me, provokt the offended gods?” When leading me, obedient to all her commands, a second time to the cell of a neighboring priestess of Priapus, she threw me upon the bed, and taking up a stick that fastened the door, reveng’d her self on me, that very patiently receiv’d her fury: and at the first stroak, if the breaking of the stick had not lessened its force, she might have broke my head and arm. I groan’d, and hiding with my arm my head, in a flood of tears lean’d on the pillow: Nor did she then, less troubled, sit on the bed, and began in a shrill voice, to blame her age, till the priestess came in upon us; and “what,” said she, “do you do in my chappel, as if some funeral had lately been, rather than a holy-day, in which, even the mournful are merry?” “Alas, my Enothea!” said she, “this youth was born under an ill star; for neither boy nor maid can raise him to a perfect appetite; you ne’re beheld a more unhappy man: In his garden the weak willow, not the lusty cedar grows; in short, you may guess what he is, that cou’d rise unblest from Circe’s bed.”