Carmina

Catullus

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.

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