literary · Roman

Prayer to Diana

Only do You, at the boy's birth, in whom a golden race now arises the world over, and the men of iron first begin to pass away, You alone favor him, chaste Lucina; indeed Your own Apollo reigns.

Commentarius · Commentary

From the fourth Eclogue — the most famous and the most obscure poem Virgil wrote.

Lucina is asked for the birth of a boy with whom "the iron race shall first cease and a golden one arise throughout the world". Who the infant is has been disputed for two thousand years: Pollio's son, Antony's son, a future heir of Augustus, an abstract figure of the age.

Christian readers from the fourth century onward saw here a prophecy of the Nativity, and on that basis counted Virgil among the forerunners — which is how he came to be Dante's guide. This one poem did more for his posthumous fame than the Aeneid.

And the request itself is tiny and entirely ordinary: help her give birth. Everything else is circumstance attached to a commonplace prayer for a woman in labour.

The card's reference was corrupt ("1.338-350"); corrected to Eclogues 4.8-10.

Fons · Source

AuthorVirgil

WorkEclogues

Section4.8-10

PeriodAugustan

Classificatio · Taxonomy

CultureRoman

Formliterary

DeitiesDiana

FunctionsPetition · Invocation

SphereCivic · Family