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(Translated from the Greek original by Thomas Taylor, London, 1792) Original Appendices to the Yearly Festivals: Originally published as an appendix to the Festival of Pomona. To The Goddess Prothyrae The Fumigation from Storax For labour pains are thy peculiar care; In thee, when stretch’d upon the bed of grief, The sex as in a mirror view relief. Guard of the race, endued with gentle mind, To helpless youth, benevolent and kind; Benignant nourisher; great Nature’s key Belongs to no divinity but thee. Thou dwell’st with all immanifest to sight, And solemn festivals are thy delight . Thine is the task to loose the virgin’s zone, And thou in ev’ry work art seen and known. With births you sympathise, tho’ pleas’d to see The numerous offspring of fertility; When rack’d with nature’s pangs and sore distress’d, The sex invoke thee, as the soul’s sure rest; For thou alone can’st give relief to pain, Which art attempts to ease, but tries in vain; Assisting Goddess, venerable pow’r, Who bring’st relief in labour’s dreadful hour; Hear, blessed Dian, and accept my prayer, And make the infant race thy constant care." (Prothyraea is an epitaph of Diana/ Artemis, alluding to her presiding over gates, and being as it were the gate-keeper of life.) To Amphietus Bacchus The Fumigation from every Aromatic except Frankincense Awak’ned rise with nymphs of lovely hair: Great Amphietus Bacchus, annual God, Who laid asleep in Proserpina’s abode, Did’st lull to drowsy and oblivious rest, The rites triennial, and the sacred feast; Which rous’d again by thee, in graceful ring, Thy nurses round thee mystic anthems sing; When briskly dancing with rejoicing pow’rs, Thou mov’st in concert with the circling hours. Come, blessed, fruitful, horned, and divine, And on these rites with joyful aspect shine; Accept the general incense and the pray’r, And make prolific holy fruits thy care." To Silenus, Satyrus, and the Priestess of Bacchus The Fumigation from Manna Silenus, honor’d by the powers divine; And by mankind at the triennal feast Illustrious daemon, reverenc’d as the best: Holy, august, the source of lawful rites, Rejoycing pow’r, whom vigilance delights; With Sylvans dancing ever young and fair, Head of the Bacchic Nymphs, who ivy bear. With all thy Satyrs on our incense shine, Daemons wild form’d, and bless the rites divine; Come, rouse to sacred joy thy pupil king, And Brumal Nymphs with rites Lenaean bring; Our orgies shining thro’ the night inspire, And bless triumphant pow’r the sacred choir."
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