Note to the Editors. While at the farmsale of a local vintner, I came across a small and curious volume in a box of old books. The entire book was in Old French, with the above title. The first part was a botanical guide to different types of grapes for wine, and the second was concerned with the process of blending and ageing them. The third seemed to be a fragment of a novel entitled "Imperator Du Vin." I believe this translation would be of interest to your readers.It is with great sorrow and desolation that I, Tria Oculo, scribe to my Liege, tell of His last days. It was my news of the bearded Nazarene that had stricken him with that perpetual ennui of the day after. It was I who provoked in Him, The Deep Sounder, the desire to return to Thebes. I have forsaken my own savoir and Gentle Master.
He who saved me, a Sacred Virgin of Naxos, from the invading Herculi. Those infidels who violated me, rendering mute and deaf. It was Bacchus, the Careless Lord, whom I saved and committed to another realm
Since the massacre of his followers and Constantine’s conversion of the Empire to the Christ, we had taken refuge the deserted estate of a bankrupt vintner in Illyricum. That land, as much of the Empire had ceased to be fertile. The numbers of my Lord's worshiper's had dwindled, it was only a few who declared their devotion, and still it was only convenient for them to do so.
There was Debacchus, that whimpering simp of ill-prudus, who was the ungrateful son of my Liege and an acolyte of Medea. He whom the Father of Liberty did take charge over to avoid suit of paternity and palimony from the causidicus. Those are dark days when a God can be sued.
And Sardia Licentia, whom Sapho's high priestess did lure down from the Caucus range with a trail of oysters and mussels, to a boat filled with lobsters and crabs and, set sail for Lesbos. There she was drafted into service, and achieved the rank of Sergeant-at-Arms. However having hunted all the stags and trapped all the ganders of that isle she fell victim to Diana's jealousy, and she was forced to wander as the eternal huntress. Having been intrigued with the strength and fierceness of the Bacchanals, particularly my Liege’s own aunts, she was mercenaried as His protector.
By far His Most Fidelus was Bababalouk, the Great Dark Giant of Tremendous Girth, the former Emperor of Sudan, who was enslaved by the Perses and made a eunuch for their petty harems. Meus Rex did find him in the woods, having escaped and suffering fron several wounds in the belly from their scimitars. The oil that oozed from his avulsions was tapped into our empty lamps, which lit the many nights he was nursed to health with grapes and olives. Bababalouk’s devotion never wavered and for this Bacchus frequently restored him to his former virilitas.
The Maenads, those most mysterious of spirits, are those who always accompany and herald Him. Some say they are simulacra of the nurses of Jove's Most Pious Bastard, to others they are his incarnated aunts, the daughters of Cadmus. It is they who shine in the drunken maid's eye. Their form is ever shifting, their number unknown, both befit their fancy. Sometimes they are swarm of thighs and breasts, of carameled hair, kohled eyelids, and hungry mouths. Other times, as then upon our departure from that refuge in the hills, they took the shape of five Egyptian slave girls with tibae and sistrum, accompanied by a peacock and his hen who with their music they incited into a mating dance.
Bacchus' litter was supported by a company of statues of soldiers from the court of Pluto, who in flesh were victims of the Gorgon's, gaze. They had been reanimated for divine attention, and many were missing noses, heads or arms lost in faithful service.
We had journeyed far in the Dalmatian Mountains. into the glowing hills of Uranium, whose realm was governed by Regina Cerratonium. She was a barren queen who desired a great son to rule over her decrepit kingdom. All the young men had expired from exhaustion from her wanton, yet futile desire. Those that were virile enough to survive the crush of her great thighs, had paid for their efforts of spilling their seed into her broken womb with their heads. Her court now depleted, she took audience only with the vermin that proliferated in great abundance. She greatly admired these rats, for their ability to reproduce, and hoped vainly that their fertility would somehow relieve her of her great desire.She never left her bed, a great walled eiderdown sunken in the middle of her chambers, and let these rodents scurry freely about in her presence. She cooed to them and spoke soft and lovingly, declaring them her children.
