Prayer to Apollo
ApolloTurn to us now, Mighty Archer, I pray that finally now, Apollo, You will come to our aid! Father, revive the life of this man. If You approve of what we do, then stir back to life he who is of the utmost importance for the success of our venture; and so from this one does the fate of all hands depends.
Valerius Flaccus, book five: the Argonauts pray over the dying Tiphys, helmsman of the Argo.
Their argument is not affectionate but practical. They ask not for a friend but for the enterprise: "the toil that turns on the topmost hinge and now hangs from a single pair of hands". The one man who can steer the ship is dying, and that, not attachment, is set out as the ground.
The image is exactly chosen: cardo, the pivot on which everything turns, is precisely the helmsman's work. The prayer speaks of him in the terms of his own craft.
Tiphys dies all the same, and Erginus takes the helm. The request goes unanswered — which happens more often in Valerius Flaccus than in Virgil.
Fons · Source
AuthorValerius Flaccus
WorkArgonautica
Section5.17-20
Period1st c. AD
Classificatio · Taxonomy