Prayer to Janus

The opening of the satire about the Sabine farm. Horace, dragged into town at dawn on other people's business, addresses the god of morning — and does it with full ritual correctness, which is what makes it funny.

Matutine pater, seu Iane libentius audis — "Father of the morning, or Janus, if you answer more gladly to that". This is genuine Roman caution: not knowing which name the god prefers, one names both and leaves the choice to him. The formula quo nomine te appellari volueris stands entire behind the line; Horace applies it to the question of how to say good morning properly.

Unde homines operum primos vitaeque labores — from whom men take the beginnings of all their tasks. The argument is impeccable: if the god is responsible for beginnings, he is also responsible for the poet's having been got out of bed at daybreak.

The whole satire runs on this: the ritual is performed perfectly, the occasion is trivial, and the mismatch is the joke.