WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG. - The Language Realm

[21] Ibid., p. 135.
[22] Carm. Bur., p. 145.
[23] Ibid., p. 230.
XI.
The drinking­songs are equally spontaneous and fresh. Anacreon pales before the brilliancy of
the Archipoeta when wine is in his veins, and the fountain of the Bacchic chant swells with
gushes of strongly emphasised bold [36]double rhymes, each throbbing like a man's firm stroke
upon the strings of lyres. A fine audacity breathes through the praises of the wine­god,
sometimes rising to lyric rapture, sometimes sinking to parody and innuendo, but always
carrying the bard on rolling wheels along the paths of song. The reality of the inspiration is
indubitable. These Bacchanalian choruses have been indited in the tavern, with a crowd of topers
round the poet, with the rattle of the dice­box ringing in his ears, and with the facile maidens of
his volatile amours draining the wine­cup at his elbow.
Wine is celebrated as the source of pleasure in social life, provocative of love, parent of
poetry:[26]—
"Bacchus forte superans
Pectora virorum
In amorem concitat
Animos eorum.
"Bacchus saepe visitans
Mulierum genus
Facit eas subditas
Tibi, O tu Venus!"
From his temple, the tavern, water­drinkers and fastidious persons are peremptorily
warned:[27]—
"Qui potare non potestis,
Ite procul ab his festis;
Non est hic locus modestis:
Devitantur plus quam pestis."
[37]
The tavern is loved better than the church, and a bowl of wine than the sacramental
chalice:[28]—