Prayer to Venus

A poem from the Appendix Vergiliana — a collection of minor pieces ascribed to Virgil. The author asks Venus to let him finish his poem about Aeneas, and promises sacrifices for it.

Provenance is the entire content of this card. If the verses are genuine, we have Virgil praying for his own Aeneid — the only such testimony in antiquity. Nearly all scholars judge them not genuine: an imitation, written later and knowing perfectly well how the matter turned out. In that case this is not a poet's prayer but someone else's idea of how the poet would have prayed — a thing no less curious in its way, but of quite another order.

The vow is built in ascending order: not with incense alone or a painted tablet, but with a ram — "a humble victim" — and a bull, "the greatest". The author lists categories of offering from cheap to dear, pricing the gift in proportion to the request. Offerings of this sort cost money, and vows really were drawn up by tariff.

The card's English runs only to line 8; lines 9-12 — a marble Cupid with a painted quiver and the closing "be present, Cytherea: your own Caesar calls you from Olympus, and the altar of the Surrentine shore" — are not translated. The mention of the deified Caesar in the last lines is itself an indication of date.