Prayer to Ceres

Three lines from Livius Andronicus' lost tragedy Equos Troianus — one of the earliest works of Latin drama altogether.

No deity is named in the fragment itself. It is a scrap torn out by a grammarian for the sake of a word-form, and whom it addresses is unknown. The attribution to Ceres in the card's fields follows from nothing in the text, and the field should be read with that reservation.

What can be seen for certain is the shape of the request: "Give me these means, which I seek, which I pray for: reach out, help!" Three imperatives in a row, with not one epithet and no justification. The early Latin stage speaks to the gods briefly and peremptorily — as Cato's formulae will later do.

The Latin of the modern carmenta-010 was taken from here: there mihi has been replaced by illi, with the name of Carmentis inserted before it.