Prayer to Apollo
ApolloAdvise me, Phoebus Apollo, if ever You inspired the Sibyl of Cumae to see visions waft from a kettle in Your sacred house, if ever a chaplet of fresh laurel dignified a worthy brow, and O You whose great fame opened many a sea.
The invocation that opens Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica.
The poet's warrant is here certified by a piece of furniture: "if the cauldron privy to the Cumaean prophetess stands in my chaste house". Valerius Flaccus was a quindecimvir — one of the keepers of the Sibylline books — and says so not directly but through the cortina, the tripod of prophecy.
The opening of the poem is thus a statement of office. The right to ask Phoebus for instruction is grounded in a priesthood, and the conditional si … si is not modesty but the presentation of credentials.
Fons · Source
AuthorValerius Flaccus
WorkArgonautica
Section1.5-7
Period1st c. AD
Classificatio · Taxonomy