Prayer to Jupiter

The Trojan women, driven to despair by the seventh year of wandering, have set fire to the ships in Sicily. Aeneas prays to Jupiter as he watches the fleet burn.

The conditions he offers are as poor as they could be. Not "if I have honoured you", but "if you do not yet hate the Trojans to the last man" and "if ancient piety has any regard at all for human toil". Aeneas advances no merits; he is asking whether it is still possible to be heard.

And then comes an offer rare in Roman prayer: either save us, "or else strike with your deadly bolt and overwhelm me here with your right hand". The god is given a choice between rescue and execution, and the second is asked for in earnest. The petitioner stakes himself, because he has nothing else to put up.

Jupiter answers at once and literally: a downpour breaks and puts out the fire. Among the prayers of the Aeneid this is one of the few granted without qualification.

The card cites lines 687-693; the Latin Library text against which it was checked runs to 692.