Let's change the subject, that's enough singing of love

Let's change the subject, that's enough singing of love.

It's empty noise, let's sing of the pruning-knife.

All wine-growers make use of it;

they need it for cutting their vines.

Oh tiny knife, oh cute little cutter,

with your help they trim and train the young plants

which produce good wines every year.

The god Vulcan, the blacksmith of Olympus,

wrought in heaven that good keen blade

out of fine steel soaked in good old wine

to make it sharper and more valiant.

Bacchus praised it, declaring it a fit

and ideal tool for good father Noah

to use in the vine-pruning season.

At that time Bacchus wore a vine-leaf hat

and used to come to bless the vines.

Bearing flagons Silenus followed -

he used to drink standing straight as a die,

and then stagger about and bump his head.

He had a nose as red as a cherry

and many folk are his descendants.