literary · Roman

Prayer to Diana

By these wandering stars I swear, by the shade of my leader, who is to me a divine power, that like the depth of my grief so is my deep resolve. Cynthia, mistress of arcane mysteries of the night, if Your divine power is threefold and You descend into the forest each time with a different appearance, it was he who recently was Your companion, and whose honor was nurtured in Your sacred grove. At least consider now to lend me Your aid, for it is this boy, Diana, for whom I search.

Commentarius · Commentary

Dymas, an Arcadian soldier, searches by night among the dead for the body of Parthenopaeus — the same youth as in diana-018. And he calls on Cynthia.

The oath at the opening is unusual: "I swear by these wandering stars, by the wandering shades of my leader". Errantes twice over — of the stars and of the shades; both are astray, and Dymas sets his word between them, himself lost in the dark.

He addresses the goddess by her nocturnal face and says so outright: "if they say that you vary your divinity with threefold shapes and descend into the woods with a different countenance". What he needs is not Diana the huntress but the Moon — because he is searching in darkness and what he is really asking for is light.

Nunc respice saltem — "look back now at least". The goddess did not protect her own foster-child; let her at least help to find him.

Fons · Source

AuthorStatius

WorkThebaid

Section10.360-370

Period1st c. AD

Classificatio · Taxonomy

CultureRoman

Formliterary

DeitiesDiana

FunctionsOath · Petition

SphereMilitary · Personal