Prayer to Carmenta

A modern text from the same Nova Roma rite as carmenta-007, where the organisation is described and the reading of the modern label explained.

The occasion given is genuine: the Carmentalia, on 11 and 15 January, was a festival of Roman matrons, and the women's part in it is not the composer's invention.

The offerings, too, are knowledgeably chosen: incense, a libation of milk, cakes heaped up. All bloodless, which suits the class of the deity — Carmenta had charge of childbirth and prophecy, not of war or the field.

Most curious of all is one request: "From over the seas, from far shores, bring the words with which we may praise the goddess." The petitioner asks the goddess of speech to supply him with speech, because he has none of his own. In an ancient hymn such a request would mean inspiration; here, in a text written to replace a lost one, it reads literally and exactly. The prayer asks for the very thing this card lacks — genuine words.

The composer presumably did not intend this. But no better definition could be found for what this whole part of the corpus is about.