Mercury

"Come, Mercury, Atlas’ famous grandson, you whom A Pleiad once bore to Jove, among the Arcadian hills, Arbiter of war and peace to gods on high, and those below: You who make your way with winged feet: who delight In the sounding lyre, and the gleaming wrestling: You through whose teaching the tongue learnt eloquence: On the Ides, the Senate founded for you, a temple facing The Circus: since then today has been your festival. All those who make a living trading their wares, Offer you incense, and beg you to swell their profits. There’s Mercury’s fountain close to the Capene Gate It’s potent, if you believe those who’ve tried it. Here the merchant, cleansed, with his tunic girt, Draws water and carries it off, in a purified jar. With it he wets some laurel, sprinkles his goods With damp laurel: those soon to have new owners. And he sprinkles his hair with dripping laurel too, And with that voice, that often deceives, utters prayers: ‘Wash away all the lies of the past,’ he says, ‘Wash away all the perjured words of a day that’s gone. If I’ve called on you as witness, and falsely invoked Jove’s great power, hoping he wouldn’t hear: If I’ve knowingly taken the names of gods and goddesses, In vain: let the swift southerlies steal my sinful words, And leave the day clear for me, for further perjuries, And let the gods above fail to notice I’ve uttered any. Just grant me my profit, give me joy of the profit I’ve made: And make sure I’ll have the pleasure of cheating a buyer.’ Mercury, on high, laughs aloud at such prayers, Remembering how he himself stole Apollo’s cattle."

—Ovid, Metamorphoses, Translated by A. S. Kline at potryintranslation.com