Prayer to Asclepius

A genuine hymn, cut in stone at the Asklepieion of Epidaurus — the greatest healing sanctuary of the Greek world, where people came to sleep in the holy chamber and be cured in a dream.

It convenes the whole visible sky: the Dioscuri, the Graces, the Muses, the Fates, "unwearied Helios and Selene at the full", and then "all the signs with which heaven is crowned" — the constellations entire. A patient at Asclepius' shrine addresses not a single physician but the firmament; behind the healing stood astrology too, and the conviction that an outcome depends on the position of the stars.

It ends with a covering formula: "rejoice, all you immortal gods everlasting, and immortal goddesses". None is to think itself omitted.

The Greek text exists but did not reach this card. It is published in Powell's Collectanea Alexandrina (1925) and in IG IV² (1929); both are restricted and unavailable in free scans. Checked and found empty: IG IV (1902), the collections of Kaibel and Preger, the Anthologia Lyrica, and Farnell. In Campbell it is fragment 937 (Greek Lyric, vol. V).

One route remains, and it is a library one: Powell's edition is lent for limited periods by archive.org.