Prayer to Venus

Eight lines — the whole ode, and wholly a kletic hymn: the class in which a deity is not asked for a favour but summoned away from somewhere.

The possessions to be abandoned are listed: Cnidus, Paphos, Cyprus. Usually such a list serves to make sure of finding the god; here it is the reverse — to lure her out. Sperne dilectam Cypron, spurn your beloved Cyprus. The goddess is invited to think little of her own favourite sanctuary for the sake of a private house.

And the house is called a temple: Glycerae decoram … in aedem, into Glycera's elegant shrine. Aedes is a cult word, and Glycera burns "abundant incense" at home as it would be burnt in a sanctuary. The whole ode transposes ritual into the vocabulary of love without altering a single term.

The retinue is listed in order: Cupid, the Graces with loosened girdles, the Nymphs, Youth, "little charming without you". And last, without explanation, comes Mercury — god of eloquence and of gain. In that house he will be useful, and Horace puts him at the end of the list and explains nothing.