The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus
We, maids and upright youths, are in Diana's care: upright youths and maids, we sing Diana.
Over the vast main borne by swift-sailing ship, Attis, as with hasty hurried foot he reached the Phrygian wood and gained the tree-girt gloomy sanctuary of the Goddess, there roused by rabid rage and mind astray, with sharp-edged flint downwards wards dashed his burden of virility. Then as he felt his limbs were left without their manhood, and the fresh-spilt blood staining the soil, with bloodless hand she hastily hent a tambour light to hold, taborine thine, O Cybebe, thine initiate rite, and with feeble fingers beating the hollowed bullock's back, she rose up quivering thus to chant to her companions.
"Haste ye together, she-priests, to Cybebe's dense woods, together haste, ye vagrant herd of the dame Dindymene, ye who inclining towards strange places as exiles, following in my footsteps, led by me, comrades, ye who have faced the ravening sea and truculent main, and have castrated your bodies in your utmost hate of Venus, make glad our mistress speedily with your minds' mad wanderings. Let dull delay depart from your thoughts, together haste ye, follow to the Phrygian home of Cybebe, to the Phrygian woods of the Goddess, where sounds the cymbal's voice, where the tambour resounds, where the Phrygian flautist pipes deep notes on the curved reed, where the ivy-clad Maenades furiously toss their heads, where they enact their sacred orgies with shrill-sounding ululations, where that wandering band of the Goddess is wont to flit about: thither 'tis meet to hasten with hurried mystic dance."
When Attis, spurious woman, had thus chanted to her comity, the chorus straightway shrills with trembling tongues, the light tambour booms, the concave cymbals clang, and the troop swiftly hastes with rapid feet to verdurous Ida. Then raging wildly, breathless, wandering, with brain distraught, hurrieth Attis with her tambour, their leader through dense woods, like an untamed heifer shunning the burden of the yoke: and the swift Gallae press behind their speedy-footed leader. So when the home of Cybebe they reach, wearied out with excess of toil and lack of food they fall in slumber. Sluggish sleep shrouds their eyes drooping with faintness, and raging fury leaves their minds to quiet ease.
But when the sun with radiant eyes from face of gold glanced o'er the white heavens, the firm soil, and the savage sea, and drave away the glooms of night with his brisk and clamorous team, then sleep fast-flying quickly sped away from wakening Attis, and goddess Pasithea received Somnus in her panting bosom. Then when from quiet rest torn, her delirium over, Attis at once recalled to mind her deed, and with lucid thought saw what she had lost, and where she stood, with heaving heart she backwards traced her steps to the landing-place. There, gazing o'er the vast main with tear-filled eyes, with saddened voice in tristful soliloquy thus did she lament her land:
"Mother-land, O my creatress, mother-land, O my begetter, which full sadly I'm forsaking, as runaway serfs are wont from their lords, to the woods of Ida I have hasted on foot, to stay 'mongst snow and icy dens of ferals, and to wander through the hidden lurking-places of ferocious beasts. Where, or in what part, O mother-land, may I imagine that thou art? My very eyeball craves to fix its glance towards thee, whilst for a brief space my mind is freed from wild ravings. And must I wander o'er these woods far from mine home? From country, goods, friends, and parents, must I be parted? Leave the forum, the palaestra, the race-course, and gymnasium? Wretched, wretched soul, 'tis thine to grieve for ever and for aye. For whatso shape is there, whose kind I have not worn? I (now a woman), I a man, a stripling, and a lad; I was the gymnasium's flower, I was the pride of the oiled wrestlers: my gates, my friendly threshold, were crowded, my home was decked with floral coronals, when I was wont to leave my couch at sunrise. Now shall I live a ministrant of gods and slave to Cybebe? I a Maenad, I a part of me, I a sterile trunk! Must I range o'er the snow-clad spots of verdurous Ida, and wear out my life 'neath lofty Phrygian peaks, where stay the sylvan-seeking stag and woodland-wandering boar? Now, now, I grieve the deed I've done; now, now, do I repent!"
As the swift sound left those rosy lips, borne by new messenger to gods' twinned ears, Cybebe, unloosing her lions from their joined yoke, and goading the left-hand foe of the herd, thus doth speak: "Come," she says, "to work, thou fierce one, cause a madness urge him on, let a fury prick him onwards till he return through our woods, he who over-rashly seeks to fly from my empire. On! thrash thy flanks with thy tail, endure thy strokes; make the whole place reecho with roar of thy bellowings; wildly toss thy tawny mane about thy nervous neck." Thus ireful Cybebe spoke and loosed the yoke with her hand. The monster, self-exciting, to rapid wrath his heart doth spur, he rushes, he roars, he bursts through the brake with heedless tread. But when he gained the humid verge of the foam-flecked shore, and spied the womanish Attis near the opal sea, he made a bound: the witless wretch fled into the wild wold: there throughout the space of her whole life a bondsmaid did she stay. Great Goddess, Goddess Cybebe, Goddess Dame of Dindymus, far from my home may all thine anger be, O mistress: urge others to such actions, to madness others hound.