which he chanced to be carrying in his stalwart hand 25
as warriors use, sturdy with knots and seasoned timber:
to it he fastens his daughter, enclosed in the cork-tree’s
forest bark, and binds her neatly round the middle
of the shaft; then, poising it in a giant’s grasp, he thus
exclaims to heaven: ‘Gracious lady, dweller in the woods, 30
Latona’s maiden daughter, I vow to thy service this my
child: thine are the first weapons that she wields as she
flies from the foe through air to thy protection. Receive,
I conjure thee, as thine own her whom I now entrust to the