Thou who with Ivy deckt thy dangling haire;
We, armd with jaulins, to thy Rites repaire.
Bright ornaments of heauen, thy suppliants heare:
To thee their hands thy noble Thebans reare.
O favour! hether turne thy virgin face:
With thy syderiall lookes disperse and chace
These lowring clouds, the threats of Erebus ,
And rage of greedy fate, from ours and vs.
It thee becomes to haue thy tresses bound
With vernall flowres, with Tyrian miter crown'd,
And girt in Ivy wreathes: now liberally
Let flow, and now in knots thy tresses tie.
As when, of thy fierce step-dames wroth afraid,
With borrowed shape so effeminately drest,
With robes that sweepe the earth, and naked brest?
Those Easterne nations who on Ganges drinke,
And breake the ice on cold Araxes brinke,
Could not thy Lyons for thy robe behold,
Drawne in a Chariot rooft with vines of gold.
Thee old Silenus on a long-ear'd jade
Attends; vine leaues his rugged fore-head shade.
Lascivious Priests thy Orges celebrate:
Troopes of Bassarian frowes vpon thee wait.
Now on Edonian Pangaeus tread;
Now on the Thracian Pindus lofty head,
Distracted Menas , ioyn'd with Theban wiues,
To serue th' Ogygian Iacchus striues;
Whose loynes a Panthers sacred skin invests:
With ruffled haire the matrons hide their brests,
And brandish leavy jaulins lightly borne.
Vnhappy Pentheus , now in peeces torne,
Relenting Thyades, their fury gon,
Behold with griefe; nor think that fact their owne.
Fair Ino , with the blew Nereides ,
(Thy Aunt o Bacchus ) raignes in sacred seas:
The stranger Boy there makes his blest aboad,
Of Bacchus race, Palemon , no smal God,
Thee, louely Boy, the Thuscan rovers seiz'd:
Then Nereus the tumid maine appeas'd,
Blew seas converting into flowry meads:
The Plane-tree there his broad-leau'd branches spreads;
Greene Laurel groues, belou'd by Phaebus , spring,
And chanting birds among the branches sing:
About the mast the youthful Ivy twines,
The lofty toe imbrac'd with clustered vines:
Now in the Prow Idaean Lyons rore,
The trembling Poope Gangetic Tygres bore:
In sea's themselues th' affrighted sailers threw;
Who turned to Dolphins , flying ships pursew.
Pactolus wealthy streames thy burden tride,
Whose waters through a golden channel glide.
Messagians , quaffing blood and milke, vnbend
Their bowes; nor more with Gettick shafts contend.
Thy power ax-arm'd Lycurgus kingdome knowes,
The fierce Zedacians ; and where Boreas blowes
On hoary fields; those climates who shake
With cold, that border on Meotis Lake;
And those whose Zenith is the Arcadian starre ;
The Northern Wagons, and slow Wagonar.
Scattred Geloni he subdued: disarm'd
The braue Virago's; Thermaedonians warm'd
Cold earth with their soft lips; but pacifi'd,
Their moone-like shields and quivers laid aside.
Sacred Cythaeron he imbrew'd with blood
Of slaine Ophians . To the shadie wood,
And fields, transformed Praetus daughters runne.
The pleased stepdame now affects her sonne.
Naxos , begirt with the Ægean waue,
A bridal bed to Ariadne gaue;
Her losse repaired with a better friend:
Torrents of wine from barren rocks descend;
A flood of milke from siluer fountaines powres,
With Lesbian hony mixt, perfum'd with flowres,
Which through the medowes murmuring streames produce,
Whose thirstie banks suckt in the pleasant juce.
The starry Bride to high-archt heauen is led:
Phaebus , his haire vpon his shoulders spred,
Epithalamiums sang that happy night:
Both Cupids now the nuptial tapers light:
Ioue laid his wrathfull thunder-bolts aside,
And hates his lightning, when he Bacchus spi'd.
While radiant starres shall runne their vsuall race,
While Neptunes armes the fruitfull earth imbrace,
While Cynthia shall her hornes together close,
While Lucifer the rosie Morne fore-showes,
While Lofty Arctos shunnes the salt Profound,
We Bacchus praise and beauty will resound.