Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/95



thresholds, mine the flowery garlands to deck my house when I was to leave my chamber at sunrise. I, shall I now be called — what? a handmaid of the gods, a ministress of Cybele? I a Maenad, I part of myself, a barren man shall I be? shall I dwell in icy snow-clad regions of verdant Ida, I pass my life under the high summits of Phrygia, with the hind that haunts the woodland, with the boar that ranges the forest? now, now I rue my deed, now, now I wish it undone.' From his rosy lips as thus the voice came quickly forth, bringing a new message to both ears of the gods, then Cybele loosening the fastened yoke from her lions, and goading that terror of the herd who drew on the left, thus speaks: ' Come then,' she says, ' come, go fiercely, let madness hunt him hence, bid him hence by stroke of madness hie him to the forests again, him who would be too free, and escape from my sovereignty. Come, lash back with tail, endure thy own blows, make all around resound with bellowing roar, shake fiercely the ruddy mane on thy brawny neck.' Thus says wrathful Cybele, and with her hand unbinds the yoke. The monster stirs himself and rouses him to fury of heart; he speeds away, he roars, he breaks the brushwood with ranging foot. But when he came to the watery stretches of the white-gleaming shore, and saw tender Attis by the smooth spaces of the sea, he rushes at him — madly flies Attis to the wild woodland. There always for all the space of his life was he a handmaid.

Goddess, great goddess, Cybele, goddess, lady of Dindymus, far from my house be all thy fury, O my queen; others drive thou in frenzy, others drive to madness.