Potent Goddess of sacred groves — for by your noble appearance and modesty I think You are not born of mortals — look with favor upon a tired army on the march. We determined that Thebes deserves to be destroyed with the sword brought forward, but now severe drought makes us no longer war-like, it bends our hearts, and weakens us into idleness. Grant drink to those who are weary, whether you hold a babbling brook or stagnant pool. This will bring no shame or desecration to your place. Winds, you now are asked along with Jove for rain, may you refresh our virile and bellicose hearts and replenish our lifeless spirits. Only Jupiter may grant that we will return with plunder, but if so, O Goddess, war gained riches we will pile as offerings of thanks to you. For your sanctuary, Goddess, a great altar we will build, and wash it in the blood of numerous Boeotian cattle to repay your kindness.
Commentarius · Commentary
The Argive army is dying of thirst; Hypsipyle leads it to the spring of Langia, and Adrastus prays to the nymph of the stream.
The prayer opens with a conjecture about whom he is addressing — "your face and your modesty deny a mortal stock" — and then runs through the options: did Latonia release you from her chaste band to a marriage bed, or does "a love slipped down from the stars, and no lowly one" make you fruitful? That is: who is your father, if you are not mortal?
And immediately a worldly aside: "for the arbiter of the gods himself is no novice in Argive bedchambers". Adrastus reminds the nymph that Jupiter has been in Argos more than once — in case she is his daughter.
The request that follows is the simplest possible: let us drink. But first it was necessary to establish whom one is speaking to, and in what category. A Roman prayer does not begin without that.
