Prayer to Carmenta

A prayer for a difficult childbirth in the modern order; for the general explanation see carmenta-001.

The line is taken from Livius Andronicus. Da mihi hasce opes, quas peto, quas precor: porrige, opitula is a fragment of his tragedy Equos Troianus (see ceres-007), where it reads mihi instead of the illi here, and where no deity is named at all. The reconstructor substituted Carmentis and at the same time redirected the request from himself to the woman in labour.

The second instance of the same procedure after carmenta-004, and here it is especially visible: not only the name has been substituted but the grammatical person.

Opes, moreover, means "resources, means, assistance", not "strength": in the tragedy what is asked for is material help. The card's English text adds herbs, distant shores and the birth itself — not a word of which is in the Latin.