Anonymous Strega Poem

Carmenta

Carmenta, Carmenta!
Thou who art so fair,
Thou who truly lovest
Children, everywhere!
As I come to thee,
So have many others,
Knelt before thy shrine
Seeking to be mothers.

January 15th is the final day of the Carmentalia which begins on the 11th of the same month in honor of the Goddess Carmenta. She is otherwise known as Metis, the Titaness of Wisdom. She is also called Car, Carya, or Car the Wise. She is the Mother of Athena, also called Tritogeneia - the Thrice-born - delivered at either Lake Triton in Lybia or the Fountain of Tritonis, located in Alipheira, Arkadia, Greece.
~ O. Peyton


The Goddess Car, who gave her name to Caria, became the Italian divinatory Goddess Carmenta, Car the Wise, and the Caryatids are her nut-nymphs. ... Pliny has preserved the tradition that Car invented augury.

Meditations on the Goddess of Divination

This corresponds in name to the Latin Carmenta or Carmentis, of whom Preller says: The Goddess of Birth, Carmenta, was so zealously worshipped near the Porta Carmentalis, which was named from her, that there was a Flamen Carmentalis, and two calendar days, the eleventh and fifteenth of January, called the Carmentalia, devoted to her worship. These were among the most distinguished festivals of the Roman matrons. She was peculiarly the Goddess of Pregnancy.
~ C. Leland, Etruscan Roman Remains

This Carmenta some think a deity presiding over human birth; for which reason she is much honoured by mothers. Others say she was the wife of Evander, the Arcadian, being a prophetess, and wont to deliver her oracles in verse, and from carmen, a verse, was called Carmenta; her proper name being Nicostrata. Others more probably derive Carmenta from carens mente, or insane, in allusion to her prophetic frenzies.
~ Plutarch (A.D. 46 - 120?)

We can begin by noting that the Etruscan calendar, which the Romans adopted during the Republic, was arranged in nundina, or eight-day periods, in Greek called ogdoads and that the Roman Goddess of Wisdom, Minerva (equivalent of the Greek Athena), had 5 (written V) as her sacred numeral. We can identify Minerva with Carmenta, because she was generally credited at Rome with the invention of the arts and sciences and because flower-decorated boats, probably made of alder wood, were sailed on her festival, the Quinquatria.
~ R. Graves, The White Goddess

The Sabines adopted the Roman months, of which whatever is remarkable is mentioned in the Life of Numa. Romulus, on the other hand, adopted their long shields, and changed his own armour and that of all the Romans, who before wore round targets of the Argive pattern. Feasts and sacrifices they partook of in common, not abolishing any which either nation observed before, and instituting several new ones; of which one was the Matronalia, instituted in honour of the women, for their extinction of the war; likewise the Carmentalia. This Carmenta some think a deity presiding over human birth; for which reason she is much honoured by mothers. Others say she was the wife of Evander, the Arcadian, being a prophetess, and wont to deliver her oracles in verse, and from carmen, a verse, was called Carmenta; her proper name being Nicostrata. Others more probably derive Carmenta from carens mente, or insane, in allusion to her prophetic frenzies.
~ Plutarch (A.D. 46 - 120?), Romulus

Now Zeus, King of the Gods, made Metis his wife first, and she was wisest among Gods and mortal men. When she was about to bring forth the Goddess, bright-eyed Athena, Zeus craftily deceived her with cunning words and put her in his own belly, as Earth and starry Heaven advised. For they advised him so, to the end that no other should hold royal sway over the eternal gods in place of Zeus; for very wise children were destined to be born of her, first the maiden, bright-eyed Tritogeneia, equal to her father in strength and in wise understanding; afterwards she was to bear a son of overbearing spirit king of Gods and men. Yet Zeus put her into his own belly first, that the Goddess might devise for him both good and evil.
~ Hesiod, Theogony