Prayer to Neptune

The fisherman Gripus has hauled a trunk out of the sea, taken himself for a rich man, and is thanking Neptune. The thanks are premature: the trunk will be taken from him, and the whole comedy is about that.

Templis reducem — returned from his temples. Templum here in the old sense: not a building but a precinct marked off for a god. The sea entire is Neptune's sanctuary, going out on it is a visit to the temple, and the catch is what you carry away from it. Fishing is described as worship with removals.

The language is deliberately grand: "in the salt, fish-abounding places", pisculentis — a coinage of Plautus' own manufacture. A slave thanks a god in the style of a priest, and the mismatch is the joke.

Salute horiae — for the safety of the little boat. Alongside the god, the tackle is thanked: the fisherman lists what he owes his luck to, and the boat stands in that list beside the deity without the slightest awkwardness.

In the fourth line the edition marks a corrupt reading; the translation there follows the received text, but rests on unstable ground.