Cardea

For other uses, see Cardea (disambiguation).

Cardea or Carda was the ancient Roman goddess of the hinge (Latin cardo, cardinis), Roman doors being hung on pivot hinges. The Augustan poet Ovid conflates her with another archaic goddess named Carna, whose festival was celebrated on the Kalends of June and for whom he gives the alternative name Cranê or Cranea, a nymph. Ovid's conflation of the goddesses is likely to have been his poetic invention,[1][2] but it has also been conjectured that Carna was a contracted form of Cardina,[3] and at minimum Ovid was observing that their traditions were congruent.[4]

  1. ^ Newlands, Carole E. (1995), Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti, Cornell University Press, p. 14
  2. ^ Fowler, William Warde (1908), The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, London, p. 131.
  3. ^ Thomas Keightley, Ovid's Fasti (London, 1848, 2nd edition), p. 210.
  4. ^ McDonough (1997), "Carna, Proca, and the Strix on the Kalends of June", Transactions of the American Philological Association 127, p. 330.