three-formed goddess, who thrice invoked,[1] hearest young women in labor, and savest them from death; sacred to thee be this pine that overshadows my villa, which I, at the completion of every year, joyful will present with the blood of a boar-pig, just meditating his oblique attack.
ODE XXIII.
TO PHIDYLE.
My rustic Phidyle, if you raise your suppliant hands[2] to heaven at the new moon, and appease the household gods with frankincense, and this year’s fruits,[3] and a ravening swine; the fertile vine shall neither feel the pestilential south-west, nor the corn the barren blight, or your dear brood the sickly season in the fruit-bearing autumn.[4] For the destined victim, which is pastured in the snowy Algidus among the oaks and holm trees, or thrives in the Albanian meadows, with its throat shall stain the axes of the priests. It is not required of you, who are crowning our little gods with rosemary and the brittle myrtle, to propitiate them with a great slaughter of sheep. If an innocent hand touches a clear, a magnificent victim does not pacify the offended Penates more acceptably, than a consecrated cake and crackling salt.
- ↑ Ter vocata. Horace mentions the number three, because it was always a mysterious number, or because women in labor invoked the goddess by three principal names. In the next line she is called triformis, as she was Luna in heaven, Diana upon earth, and Proserpine in hell; from whence she was painted with three heads, one, of a lion, another, of a bull, and the third of a dog. San.
- ↑ This was the usual gesture of the ancients when they prayed; but with this difference, that when they addressed themselves to the celestial gods they held the palms of their hands upward, as if to receive a blessing; but turned them toward the earth in their prayers to the infernal gods, as if to avert an evil. Cruq.
- ↑ Horna, i.e. "spicis hornotinis, hujus anni." Orelli.
- ↑ "Annus"—"tempestas." Cf. Epod. ii. 39. Virg. Ecl. iii. 87.
