Prayer to Vulcan
VulcanGrattius Faliscus is the author of the only surviving Roman poem on hunting, and this passage comes from near its end: by the surrounding lines, huntsmen are bringing sick dogs to a shrine of Vulcan to be purified at a sacred spring.
Vulcan is named neither as smith nor as god of fire but as incola of the holy place — its "sacred dweller". This is a local deity, tied to the spring and the cave; he is prayed to as the owner of the ground one has entered, not as a figure of myth.
The request is framed forensically: "if there is no fault deserving so great a penalty — have pity". The sickness is understood as a punishment, and the first move is to contest the grounds of the sentence; mercy is asked only afterwards.
The last line and a half are not prayer but stage direction: three times they call, three times they pour incense, an altar is built of auspicious boughs. The poet shows the rite from outside immediately after giving it from within.