Watkins Mars Prayer

Jonathan Slocum and Carol Justus

Poetic Analysis of Cato's Mars Prayer

In chapter 17 of How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995 & 2001, pp. 199 ff.), Calvert Watkins analyzes Cato's Mars Prayer as an old form of Indo-European poetic language; as an old IE poem, this text would fall into four strophes, held together with synonymous doubling, repetition, and nesting conventions. His translation and spacing emphasize this:

1	I		Mars pater te precor quaesoque
2			uti sies uolens propitius
3			mihi domo familiaeque nostrae:
4		quoius rei ergo
5			agrum terram fundumque meum
6			suouitaurilia circumagi iussi
7	II	uti tu
8			morbos uisos	inuisosque
9			uiduertatem	uastitudinemque
10			calamitates	intemperiasque
11			prohibessis defendas auerruncesque
12	III	utique tu
13			fruges frumenta	uineta uirgultaque
14			grandire	(du)eneque euenire siris
15			pastores pecuaque	salua seruassis
16			duisque (du)onam salutem	ualetudinemque
17			mihi domo familiaeque nostrae
18	IV	harunce rerum ergo
19			fundi terrae agrique mei
20			lustrandi lustrique faciendi ergo
21		sicuti dixi
22			macte hisce suouitaurilibus lactentibus inmolandis esto
23			Mars pater eiusdem rei ergo
24			macte hisce suouitaurilibus lactentibus esto

N.B. Watkins restores Old Latin 'u' for instances of the more modern letter 'v'; also, in (du)ene [line 14] and (du)onam [line 16], Watkins restores "the Old Latin form of later bene, bonam."

Watkins' English translation, as he formats it, is:

1	I		Father Mars, I pray and beseech you
2			that you befavorable (and) propitious
3			to me, my house, and our household:
4		to which end
5			I have ordered the suouitaurilia to be driven around
6			my field, land, and farm;
7	II	that you
8			forbid, ward off, and brush aside
9			diseases seen	and unseen,
10			depopulation	and devastation,
11			storms	and tempests;
12	III	and that you
13			let grow tall	and turn out well
14			grains (and) corn	and vineyards (and) shrubwork
15			and keep safe	shepherds (and) cattle
16			and give good health	and soundness
17			to me, my house, and our household.
18	IV	To these ends,
19			to purify and perform the purification
20			of my farm, land, and field
21		so as I spoke
22			be magnified by these suckling suouitaurilia to be sacrificed;
23			Father Mars, to that same end,
24			be magnified by these suckling suouitaurilia.

Watkins cites numerous poetic devices, including the doubling or tripling of figures (A and B, or A and B and C); the reader is referred to How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics for extensive discussion.</p