Lucretius—The Invocation to Venus

Sandro Botticelli, Allegorical Birth of Venus (1485)

Quæ quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas

Nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras

Exoritur neque fit lætum neque amabile quicquam,

Te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse

Quos ego de rerum natura pangere conor

Memmiadæ nostro, quem tu, dea, tempore in omni

Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus.

Quo magis æternum da dictis, diva, leporem.

Effice ut interea fera moenera militiai

Per maria ac terras omnis sopita quiescent.

Since you alone rule over the nature of things, since without you nothing emerges into the immense radiance of the world, indeed nothing joyous nor beautiful is born, I honor you in crafting these verses, in which I hope to demonstrate the great design, for my good Memmius, whom you, goddess, have enabled to all times to excel, and have endowed with gifts. Goddess, I beseech you to grant my words an ever-lasting appeal. Moreover, let this come to pass: on all the seas and lands of our earth, may the savage works of war be stilled, and let there be peace.

–Titus Lucretius Caro, De rerum natura, invoc, lib i, 21-30 in the Loeb Library ed. of the works of Lucretius, p. 4 (ca. 50 BCE)(S.H. transl.)