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 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 took a tambour light to hold, your taborine, Cybele,
your initiate rite, and with feeble fingers beating the hollowed bullock's back,
she rose up quivering thus to chant to her companions.
“Haste you together, she-priests, to Cybele's dense woods, together
haste, you vagrant herd of the dame Dindymene, you who inclining towards strange
places as exiles, following in my footsteps, led by me, comrades, you 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 you, follow to the Phrygian home of Cybele,
to the Phrygian woods of the Goddess, where sounds the cymbal's voice, where the
tambour resounds, where the Phrygian flutist 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 flits about: there it is 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, hurries 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 Cybele 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 over the white
heavens, the firm soil, and the savage sea, and drove 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
over the vast main with tear-filled eyes, with saddened voice in tristful
soliloquy thus did she lament her land:
“Mother-land, my creatress, mother-land, my begetter, which full sadly
I'm forsaking, as runaway serfs do from their lords, to the woods of Ida I have
hasted on foot, to stay amid snow and icy dens of beasts, and to wander through
their hidden lurking-places full of fury. Where, or in what part, mother-land,
may I imagine that you are? My very eyeball craves to fix its glance towards
you, while for a brief space my mind is freed from wild ravings. And must I
wander over these woods far from my home? From country, goods, friends, and
parents, must I be parted? Leave the forum, the palaestra, the race-course, and
gymnasium? Wretched, wretched soul, it is yours to grieve for ever and ever. For
what 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 garlands, when I used to leave my couch at sunrise. Now will I live
a ministrant of gods and slave to Cybele? I a Maenad, I a part of me, I a
sterile trunk! Must I range over the snow-clad spots of verdurous Ida, and wear
out my life beneath 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, Cybele, unloosing her lions from their joined yoke, and goading, the
left-hand foe of the herd, thus speaks: “Come,” she says,
“to work, you fierce one, cause a madness urge him on, let a fury
prick him onwards till he returns through our woods, he who over-rashly seeks to
fly from my empire. On! thrash your flanks with your tail, endure your strokes;
make the whole place re-echo with roar of your bellowings; wildly toss your
tawny mane about your nervous neck.” Thus ireful Cybele spoke and
loosed the yoke with her hand. The monster, self-exciting, to rapid wrath spurs
his heart, 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 wood: there throughout the space of her whole life a bondsmaid did she
stay. Great Goddess, Goddess Cybele, Goddess Dame of Dindymus, far from my home
may all your anger be, 0 mistress: urge others to such actions, to madness
others hound.
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