Prayer to Minerva

Hercules has come back from the underworld, killed the usurpers, and is summoning the gods to a purificatory sacrifice. Within a few lines madness will descend on him and he will kill his own children: the prayer stands exactly on the threshold of the catastrophe, and Seneca puts it there deliberately.

Laborum socia et adiutrix — companion and helper in his labours. The ground is truthful: in myth Athena really did assist him in the labours, held up the sky for him, startled the Stymphalian birds. He is calling not a patroness in general but a fellow worker.

The description of the goddess is a description of a statue: the aegis on the left arm, the petrifying face, the fierce threats upon it. Seneca sees not a myth but a temple image, and his suppliant addresses what is standing in front of him.

Geminumque numen Phoebus et Phoebi soror — a twin divinity, Phoebus and Phoebus' sister. The twins are named as one thing: two gods counted as a single power.

The card's deities field lists Minerva, Apollo and Diana. The Latin has a fourth — "the tamer of Lycurgus and of the Red Sea", that is Bacchus, named not by his name but by his Indian campaign.