Prayer to Diana

Ovid explains the name Lucina — and, as often in the Fasti, offers two explanations at once without choosing between them.

"This name the grove gave you, or else because you, goddess, hold the beginning of light." Behind the first stands lucus, a grove; behind the second lux, light. Both chime with the name, both etymologies work by sound, and Ovid sets them side by side, leaving the choice to the reader.

The whole poem works this way. The Fasti do not so much explain rites as collect the explanations in circulation; Ovid behaves not as a priest but as an antiquarian, and where tradition divides he honestly shows the fork.

In Russian the play is lost: neither "grove" nor "light" chimes with Lucina.

The card's English adds a second half — about easy births and ripened infants — which is not in this couplet.