literary · Roman

Prayer to Neptune

O Neptune, grand and rare is the pledge we make to You, and in what we commend into the depths of the sea. Father of the mighty Deep, grant that the benign stars, the Spartan brothers, Castor and Pollux, sit upon the horns of the yard arm. Let your light illuminate sea and sky. Drive off your sister Helen's stormy star, I pray, and expel it from all the heavens.

Commentarius · Commentary

A send-off: Statius' friend Maecius Celer is sailing east, and the poet writes him a propemptikon, verses for the journey. They are constructed entirely as a prayer, and the whole ritual apparatus is put at the service of a private farewell.

The key word is depositum, a pledge. "A great and rare pledge we give, Neptune, to your deep." In Roman law a depositum is a thing handed over for safekeeping with an obligation to return it intact. The sea is not asked to be kind; a contract of bailment is concluded with it. Plautus' slave entrusted his parents' property to the gods with the same family of verbs (lares-002), and in legal terms there is no difference at all — only that the object here is alive.

The request for quiet is phrased with unexpected precision: "let the gentle wave not drown out the man praying". Even a calmed sea makes noise, and a prayer must be audible; the poet is attending to the acoustics of the rite.

At the end the "Oebalian brothers" are called to the yardarm — Castor and Pollux, settling on its two horns. This is St Elmo's fire: the glow on the masts before a storm, which sailors read as an appearance of the Dioscuri. The prayer asks for a manifestation that can be seen.

The card cited lines 1-49; 1-12 are given, that is, the opening.

Fons · Source

AuthorStatius

WorkSilvae

Section3.2.1-12

Period1st c. AD

Classificatio · Taxonomy

CultureRoman

Formliterary

DeitiesNeptune

FunctionsPetition · Dedication

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