Carmina

Catullus

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

  1. And as her tender finger-tips on bull-back hollow rang
  2. She rose a-grieving and her song to listening comrades sang.
  3. "Up Gallae, hie together, haste for Cybele's deep grove,
  4. Hie to the Dindymnean dame, ye flocks that love to rove;
  5. The which affecting stranger steads as bound in exile's brunt
  6. My sect pursuing led by me have nerved you to confront
  7. The raging surge of salty sea and ocean's tyrant hand
  8. As your hate of Venus' hest your manly forms unmann'd,
  9. Gladden your souls, ye mistresses, with sense of error bann'd.
  10. Drive from your spirits dull delay, together follow ye
  11. To hold of Phrygian goddess, home of Phrygian Cybebe,
  12. Where loud the cymbal's voice resounds with timbrel-echoes blending,
  13. And where the Phrygian piper drones grave bass from reed a-bending,
  14. Where toss their ivy-circled heads with might the Maenades
  15. Where ply mid shrilly lullilooes the holiest mysteries,
  16. Where to fly here and there be wont the she-god's vaguing train,
  17. Thither behoves us lead the dance in quick-step hasty strain."
  18. Soon as had Atys (bastard-she) this lay to comrades sung
  19. The Chorus sudden lulliloos with quivering, quavering tongue,
  20. Again the nimble timbrel groans, the scooped-out cymbals clash,