Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunx
Reddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.
Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,
Mollis et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.
Quae precor eveniant: et nos faciamus ad annum
Pastorum dominae grandia liba Pali.
This prayer must be said four times over[[274]], the shepherd looking to the east and wetting his hands with the morning dew[[275]]. The position, the holy water, and the prayer in its substance, though now addressed to the Virgin, have all descended to the Catholic shepherd of the Campagna.
4. Then a bowl is to be brought, a wooden antique bowl apparently[[276]], from which milk and purple sapa, i. e. heated wine, may be drunk, until the drinker feels the influence of the fumes, and when he is well set he may leap over the burning heaps:
Moxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervos
Traiicias celeri strenua membra pede[[277]].