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Prayers to Ceres

16 prayers

The prayers to Ceres are agricultural before they are anything else: Cato's formula for the harvest sacrifice reads like an instruction, not a hymn. Beside it stand Ovid's Fasti on the Cerialia and the mourning of the Eleusinian story, which Rome received along with the goddess.

What is asked
Fontes · Sources
  • Apuleius · Metamorphoses2
  • Tibullus · Elegiae2
  • Virgil · Georgics2
  • Caesius Bassius / Philicus · Hymn to Ceres and Libera1
  • Cato · De Agricultura1
  • Cicero · In C. Verrem1
  • Livius Andronicus · Equos Troianos1
  • Livy · Ab Urbe Condita1
  • M. Horatius Piscinus · Harvest Prayer to Ceres (modern reconstruction)1
  • Ovid · Amores1
  • Ovid · Fasti1
  • Ovid · Metamorphoses1
  • Seneca · Hercules Furens1
Orationes · The texts
  1. 001

    Prayer to Bacchus and Ceres

    Tibullus · Elegiae · 2.1.3-4; 17-20

    Come to us, Bacchus, with clusters of grapes dangling from your horns, and you, too, Ceres, a wreath of newly ripened wheat for your temples, come! Gods of our fathers, we purify our farmers and our fruitful fields; we ask that you drive away harm from our borders. Let not the now sprouting plants succumb before harvest, let not the timid lambs be outrun by swift wolves.

    RomanInvocationPetitionProtection
  2. 002

    Prayer to Ceres

    Virgil · Georgics · 1.338-350

    Before all else, worship the Gods, and to great Ceres pay Her annual due upon the happy sward with sacrifice, at the utmost end of winter, when spring begins to smile. Then are the lambs fat, and the wines most mellow, then is sleep sweet, and dark the shadows fall upon the mountains. Let your rustic youth do obedience to Ceres, one and all; and for Her pleasure mix honeycombs in milk, and offer Liber's ripe produce. Thrice for luck around the young grain let the offerings travel, and all the choir, a joyful company, attend it, and with shouts bid Ceres come to be their house-mate. Let no man dare put sickle to ripened ears until, with woven oak his temples wreath, he foot the rugged dance and chant the lay.

    RomanInvocationDedicationPraise
  3. 003

    Prayer to Ceres

    Apuleius · Metamorphoses · 6.2

    O merciful Mother, I pray You avert my sorrow, by Your generous and temperate right hand, by the joyful harvest festival, by Your mysteries kept in silent secrecy, by Your winged servants, the dragons who serve Your chariot as You go about, and by the furrows in Sicilian clods of earth, and the plow-wheels that churn them from firm soil, by the marriage of Proserpina that You discovered through diligently seeking after Your daughter, and by the mysteries held in silent secrecy within the Attic temple of Eleusis, halt the misery of Your servant Psyche. Among this piled wheat let me be concealed, if only for a few days, until the ire of so great a Goddess passes, or at least give me a quiet interval that I might rest from my great labour and travail.

    RomanPetitionInvocation
  4. 004

    Prayer to Ceres and Isis

    Apuleius · Metamorphoses · 11.2

    O blessed Queen of Heaven, whether you are the Lady Ceres who is the original and motherly source of all fruitful things in earth, who after finding Your daughter Proserpina, through the great joy which You did presently conceive, made barren and unfruitful ground to be plowed and sown — You which nourishes all the fruits of the world by Your vigor and force; with whatsoever name or fashion it is lawful to call upon You, I pray You end my great travail and misery, and deliver me from the wretched fortune, which has for so long a time pursued me. Grant peace and rest if it please You to reply to my entreaties, for I have endured too much labor and peril. Remove from me this misshapen form, and return me to my pristine form, and if I have offended in any way the divine Majesty, let me rather die than live, for I am fully weary of my life.

    RomanPetitionInvocation
  5. 005

    Prayer to Ceres

    Cato · De Agricultura · 134

    Ceres Mater, to You I pray with good prayers, offering You this pile of cakes, so that You might willing be favorable to me and my children, to my home and household. Ceres Mater, for the same reasons given in the good prayers I prayed while offering You piled cakes, may You accept and be honored by this portion of wine I pour.

    RomanPetitionDedication
  6. 006

    Prayer to Ceres and Libera

    Cicero · In C. Verrem · II.5.187-188

    O Ceres and Libera, whose sacred worship is contained in the most important and most abstruse mysteries; You, by whom the principles of life and food, the examples of laws, customs, humanity, and refinement are said to have been given and distributed to nations and to cities; You, again and again I implore and appeal to, most holy Goddesses, who dwell around those lakes and groves of Enna, and who preside over all Sicily — You whose invention and gift of corn, which You have distributed over the whole earth, inspires all nations and all races of men with reverence for Your divine power.

    RomanInvocationPraise
  7. 007

    Prayer to Ceres and Earth

    Ovid · Fasti · 1.671-704

    O Mothers of Fruitfulness, Earth and Ceres, please, with salted spelt cakes offered for Your mother's woe, in kind service have Earth and Ceres nurtured wheat, She who gave grain life, She who gave us room to grow. May You grant tender seed abundant increase. Let not icy cold enwrap our new shoots with snow, while we sow let cloudless skies and fair winds blow. When the seed lies sprouting, sprinkle with gentle rains, may You ward off the feasting by birds from our grains.

    RomanPetitionProtection
  8. 008

    Prayer to Ceres

    M. Horatius Piscinus · Harvest Prayer to Ceres (modern reconstruction)

    O most holy Ceres, nurturing Mother, whose sacred womb gave birth to both Gods and men; You, Vervactor, who first yoked the oxen and placed the ploughshare to virgin soil; You, Reparator, who first prepared furrows in fallow land; You, Imporcitor, who first made wide our furrows; You, Insitor, who first cast Your bounty on the earth and taught the seed to grow; Obarator, Sarritor, Subruncinator, and You, Sterculinia, who first cared for crops; You, Flora, who make the grain to bear fruit; You, Messitor, who first set scythe to grain stalks; You, Convector, who first spread grain on the sacred harvest floor; You, Noduterentor, who first showed us how to thresh, and You, most holy Ceres, whose very breath separates the white chaff from the golden grain; You, Conditor and Tutilina, who guard the grain in storage; You, Promitor, who first milled the grain and distributed its flour for our daily bread; You, eternal savior, Ceres, lavishing Your bounty upon me and mine, to You, flaxen-haired Ceres, gladly I give thanks and praise, and, from the little I have, to You I willingly make an offering. Accept these, the first fruits of my fields. May my offering incline You more towards me. May You ever nourish me and mine with Your bounty, O most holy and nurturing Mother, gentle Ceres.

    RomanInvocationGratitudeDedication
  9. 009

    Prayer to Ceres

    Ovid · Metamorphoses · 5.341-343

    Ceres first turned the earth with the curved plough; she first gave corn and crops to bless the land; she first gave laws; all things are Ceres' gift. Of Ceres I must sing. Oh that my song may hymn the goddess' praise as she deserves, a goddess who deserved high hymns of praise.

    RomanInvocationPraise
  10. 010

    Prayer to Ceres and Libera

    Caesius Bassius / Philicus · Hymn to Ceres and Libera

    Fertile Goddesses, wives of Jove, may the mystic rite that You cherish not be defiled.

    RomanPetitionProtection
  11. 011

    Prayer to Ceres

    Livius Andronicus · Equos Troianos

    Grant me the strength, Goddess, to whom I ask, to whom I pray; extend your assistance to me.

    RomanPetition
  12. 012

    Prayer to Ceres and Proserpina

    Livy · Ab Urbe Condita · 24.38.8

    Mother Ceres and Proserpina and all You Gods above and below who inhabit the city, these hallowed lakes and groves, I pray that You attend us with Your favor and support, if it should be that we are taking this initial step for the purpose of guarding against treacherous falsehood, not practicing it.

    RomanOathPetition
  13. 013

    Prayer to Ceres

    Ovid · Amores · 3.10.3-14; 43-48

    Flaxen-haired Ceres, Your fine tresses wreathed with ears of wheat, why must your sacred rites inhibit our pleasures? Goddess, people everywhere praise your munificence. No other goddess so lavishes men and women with everything good. In earlier times the uncouth peasant never roasted grains of wheat, never knew a threshing floor, but oak trees, those first oracles, provided them with gruel. Acorns, tender roots and herbs made their meal then. Ceres first taught seeds to ripen in the fields, taught how to follow Her with scythe against their golden hair, first broke the oxen to yoke and reveal the fertile earth beneath its curved blade.

    RomanPraisePetition
  14. 014

    Prayer to Ceres

    Seneca · Hercules Furens · 229

    For you, Goddess of the Fruits of the Earth, your secret rites I will fund; in your shrine at Eleusis shall burn the sacred flame in celebration of your mysteries.

    RomanDedicationOath
  15. 015

    Prayer to Ceres

    Tibullus · Elegiae · 1.1.15-16

    Golden-haired Ceres, bless this our farm; a crown of wheat I shall hang before your altar.

    RomanPetitionDedication
  16. 016

    Prayer to Ceres

    Virgil · Georgics · 1.7-12

    Liber and gentle Ceres, if by your gifts the earth once changed, exchanging Chaonian acorns for rich heads of grain, and receiving your invention of wine from Acheloian cups, and you Fauns, your divine presence an aid for rustics, bring dancing feet, as when Dryad girls frolic with Fauns, of your gifts I sing.

    RomanInvocationPraise
Invoked alongside
Bacchus2Earth2Libera2Flora1Isis1Janus1Juno1Jupiter1Proserpina1the Fauns1
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