Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/91



So when he felt his limbs to have lost their manhood, and yet with fresh blood dabbling the face of the ground, swiftly with snowy hands she seized the light timbrel, timbrel, trumpet of Cybele, thy mysteries, Mother, and shaking with soft fingers the hollow ox-hide thus began she to sing to her com- panions tremulously: ' Come away, ye Gallae, go to the deep forests of Cybele together, together go, wandering herd of the lady of Dindymus, who swiftly seeking alien homes as exiles, following my band as I led you in my train, have endured the fast-flowing brine and the raging seas, and have unmanned your bodies from utter hatred of love, cheer your Lady's heart with swift wanderings. Let slow delay depart from your mind; go together, follow to the Phrygian house of Cybele, to the Phrygian forests of the goddess, where the noise of cymbals sounds, where timbrels re-echo, where the Phrygian fluteplayer blows a deep note on his curved reed, where the Maenads ivy-crowned toss their heads violently, where with shrill yells they shake the holy emblems, where that wandering company of the goddess is wont to rove, whither for us 'tis meet to hasten with rapid dances.'

So soon as Attis, woman yet no true one, sang this to her attendants, the revellers suddenly with quivering tongues yell aloud, the light timbrel rings again, clash again the hollow cymbals, swift to green Ida goes the rout with hurrying foot. Then too frenzied, panting, uncertain, wanders, gasping for breath, attended by the timbrel, Attis, through the dark forests their leader, as a heifer unbroken starting aside from the burden of the yoke. Fast follow the Gallae their hurrying leader. So when they gained the house of Cybele, faint and weary, after much toil

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