The work had been preceded by a version from 1779 titled "Bacchi Temple opened at the death of Corporal and Order Oboist Father Movitz", but had been reworked and expanded several times.

[2] It has been described as a curious hybrid, a combination of comic opera and mock-heroic verse, and as a not very satisfactory work, despite the "lovely" song[1] Böljan sig mindre rör ('Still'd is the hasty wave').

The songs originate in Carl Michael Bellman's performances on the theme The Order of Bacchus (Bacchi Orden), starting in 1769–1771, after which the production was largely unseen until 1777.

The work begins with a stormy night, but at dawn the storm passes and everything turns into rural idyll, and the readers are informed that it is Movitz who is the father of Ulla's children, and she describes how it came to be in this particular place.

[10] When the men arrive, the women quickly become more crass: they describe the "Knights of Bacchus" in ironic terms as "heroes" who, however, urinate on planks and resemble roast pigs.

[11] In the closing passage, spoken by Janke Jensen, it is no longer a question of depicting nature: now a mythological tableau is painted, with Movitz on Mount Olympus together with ancient gods and heroes such as Mars, Pompey, and Hannibal.

[12] The Swedish scholar Lars Lönnroth called the book "a curious hybrid of comic opera and mock-heroic poetry", and one of Bellman's "most ambitious" projects, intended, in response to Kellgren's attack, to prove that he was a serious poet.

[14][15][16] The English biographer of Bellman, Paul Britten Austin, wrote that Bacchi Tempel was "exhausting" to read, and that while it contained "a few very beautiful lyrics", such as "the lovely Böljan sig mindre rör ('Still'd is the hasty wave') with its butterfly-wing delicacy", the song play was "not a very satisfactory work".

[17][18] Böljan sig mindre rör Eol mindre viner, när han från stranden hör våra mandoliner; månan han skiner, vattnet glittrar lugnt och kallt, syren, jasminer sprida vällukt över allt, fjäriln i guld och grönt, glimmar på blomman skönt, ||: masken snart krälar ur sitt grus.