Prayer to Aesculapius

The year 291 BC: plague at Rome, an embassy brings from Epidaurus the serpent in which Asclepius has appeared, and the ship enters the Tiber. A cry goes up from the bank.

This is not a prayer but an announcement. Deus en, deus est — behold a god, it is a god: the epiphany formula by which a deity's presence is proclaimed. Virgil uses the same before the Sibyl's prophecy, deus ecce deus. Such cries are functional: they do not ask for anything, they move the assembly into the state of ritual.

The second half of the line is an instruction. Animis linguisque favete is usually rendered "be reverent", but literally it means "be silent". Favete linguis is a technical requirement of Roman rite: complete silence, so that no chance word of ill omen may be heard and spoil the proceedings. Ovid adds animis, in mind: the silence has to be interior as well.

The placing of the line is not accidental. The fifteenth book of the Metamorphoses ends with the deification of Caesar, and the arrival of Asclepius is the penultimate transformation preparing the last: a Greek god sails up the river into Rome a few pages before a Roman becomes a god.