Carmina
Catullus
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.
- O'er high deep seas in speedy ship his voyage Atys sped
- Until he trod the Phrygian grove with hurried eager tread
- And as the gloomy tree-shorn stead, the she-god's home, he sought
- There sorely stung with fiery ire and madman's vaguing thought,
- Share he with sharpened flint the freight wherewith his form was fraught.
- Then as the she-he sensed limbs were void of manly strain
- And sighted freshly shed a-ground spot of ensanguined stain,
- Snatched she the timbrel's legier load with hands as snowdrops white,
- Thy timbrel, Mother Cybele, the firstings of thy rite,
- And as her tender finger-tips on bull-back hollow rang
- She rose a-grieving and her song to listening comrades sang.
- "Up Gallae, hie together, haste for Cybele's deep grove,
- Hie to the Dindymnean dame, ye flocks that love to rove;
- The which affecting stranger steads as bound in exile's brunt
- My sect pursuing led by me have nerved you to confront
- The raging surge of salty sea and ocean's tyrant hand
- As your hate of Venus' hest your manly forms unmann'd,
- Gladden your souls, ye mistresses, with sense of error bann'd.
- Drive from your spirits dull delay, together follow ye
- To hold of Phrygian goddess, home of Phrygian Cybebe,