In the impetuous fugue movement, the bass, the contraltos, the sopranos repeated the frenzied acclamation to the Immortal of the thousand names and the thousand crowns, "born on an ineffable bed, like to a young man in his first youth."
The old Dionysian intoxication seemed born again, diffusing itself through that divine chorus. The fulness and freshness of life in the smile of Zeus, who freed men's souls from sadness, expressed itself in a luminous outburst of joy. The torches of the Bacchantes blazed and crackled in the sound. As in an Orphic hymn, the brightness of conflagration illumined that youthful brow, surmounted by azure hair. "When the splendor of fire invaded the whole earth, he alone checked the whirlwinds of flame." As in the Homeric hymn, there palpitated the sterile bosom of the sea, expressing in regular cadences the measured stroke of the oars that propelled the stout vessel toward unknown lands. The Flower-bearer, the Fructifier, the visible Remedy for mortal man, the sacred Flower, The Friend of Pleasure, Dionysius, the liberator, suddenly appeared before mankind on the wings of song, crowning for them that nocturnal hour with happiness, placing before them once more the cup overflowing with all the good things of life.
The song increased in power; all the voices blended in the rush of melody. The hymn celebrated the tamer of tigers, of panthers, lions and lynxes. A cry seemed to rise from Mænads with heads turned backward, flying locks and floating robes, who struck their cymbals and shook their castanets: Evoé!
But now suddenly surged above these heroic measures a broad, pastoral rhythm, invoking the Theban Bacchus, of the pure brow and gentle thoughts:
Quel che all'olmo la vite in stretto nodo
Pronuba accoppia, e i pampini feconda ...
Only two voices, in a succession of sixths, now sang the flowery nuptials, the leafy marriage, the flexible bonds. Before the eyes of the multitude again passed that image already created by the poet of the barque laden with clusters, like a vat filled with grapes to be made into wine. And again the song seemed to recall the miracle witnessed by the prudent pilot Medeia: "And behold! a sweet and fragrant wine ran over the swift, black boat.... And behold! a vine climbed to the top of the sail, and from it hung innumerable clusters of grapes. And a dark ivy twined about the mast, and it was covered with flowers, and beautiful fruits amid their foliage grew thereon, and garlands were wound about the rowlocks."
The spirit of the fugue then passed into the orchestra, and mounted in exquisitely light roulades, while the voices struck on the orchestral web with simultaneous percussion. And, like a thyrsus waving over the Bacchic troop, a single voice floated out in the nuptial melody, with the laughing joy and grace of the pastoral marriage:
Viva dell'olmo,
E della vite
L'almo fecondo
Sostenitor!
The voices seemed to evoke the image of erect and graceful Tiades, gently waving their thyrsi in the mists of divine intoxication, dressed in long saffron-hued robes, their faces lighted up, ardent as those women of Veronese, who leaned over their aerial balconies to listen to the song.