Prayer to Diana and Venus

A fragment of Laevius, a poet of the turn of the second and first centuries BC — one of those called new poets long before the neoterics.

The play here is grammatical, and everything depends on it. Venerem … almum: a feminine noun with a masculine adjective, and immediately the explanation — "whether she is female or male". The subject is a deity of both sexes: Venus-Aphrodite was worshipped in some cults in male form as well.

In Russian the effect could be kept: Венеру благого reproduces the same disagreement, the same jolt on which the phrase depends.

Noctiluca, "she who shines by night", is a cult name of the Moon (compare Horace, Odes 4.6.38). Diana is not named in the text; Venus, who is named outright, has been added to the fields.