Oh Iakchos, son of Semele and giver of plenty,
give me steady feet and the power to resist laryngeal spasms
so I can make it home before puking up all that wine I drank.
The crowds are thicker this year, gayer;
everyone wanted to come out and watch the flower-boat pass by
and get obscenely ribbed by the drunkards in the ox-cart.
Life hasn’t been easy these last couple years;
first those thrice-aged blow-hards got us into an unwinnable war in Syracuse
which led to us getting our asses kicked by the Lakedaimonians.
The owl plummeted, the herms had their pricks cut off
by those no-good anarchosocialist philosophical terrorists,
that virtual demagogue tried convincing people the Gods weren’t real,
there was plague, and riots and looting; the inevitable crackdown by the state
show-trials, folks gone missing in the night, starvation and cannibalism.
But somehow we made it through. Our Makedonian savior arrived
on the feast of Dionysos, and so on this, the flower festival of our God
we Athenians have come out in full force to praise him for our deliverance.
Now I pray he save me from becoming a purple-dyer;
you never get murex-goo off your fingers.
