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Over the vast deep, Attis, borne by swift-sailing ship,
with hastily-hurried feet reached the Phrygian wood
and gained the gloomy tree-ringed sanctuary of the Goddess,
and there, roused by rabid rage and with mind-astray,
with sharp flint he downwards-dashed his burden of virility.
And then felt limbs left without their manhood,
and saw fresh-spilt masculine blood staining the soil,
with bloodless hand quickly She took a tambourine lightly,
your tambourine, mother Cybele, your initiate rite,
and with feeble fingers beating the hollowed bullock's back,
Chanting thus she rose up to quiver to her companions:
“Haste you together, Priestesses, to Cybele's dense woods,
together haste, you vagrant herd of the Dindymenean dame,
you who, seeking strange places as exiles,
following in my footsteps, led by me, comrades,
you who have faced the angry salty sea and the hostile winds,
and having castrated your bodies in utmost hate of Venus,
You please our mistress with your minds' mad wanderings.
So let dull delay depart from your thoughts, and together let's haste
To the Phrygian home of Cybele, to the Phrygian woods of the Goddess
where the cymbal sounds, where the tambour echos,
where the Phrygian flute plays deep notes on the curved reed,
where the ivy-clad Maenades furiously toss their heads,
where they enact their sacred ceremonies with shrill ululu’s,
where that wandering band of the Goddess is want to flit about:
There it befits you to hasten with hurried-mystic-dances.”
As soon as Attis, semiwoman, had chanted this to her company,
the chorus immediately ululu'ed with trembling tongues,
lightly the tambour echoes, the concave cymbals clash,
and the troop swiftly hastens with rapid feet to verdurous Ida.
Then raging, breathlessly wandering, with mind distraught
hurries Attis with her tambour, 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 clarmorous team,
then Sleep briskly sped away from wakening Attis,
and the goddess Pasithea received Sleep in her panting ***.
Then, when from quiet rest torn, her delirium over,
Attis at-once recalled with her heart, her deed,
and with sober mind saw what was lost, and where she stood,
and with soul heaving, retraced her steps to that dark place.
There, gazing over the vast ocean with tear-filled eyes,
with saddened voice to her country in tristful soliloquy did she lament:
“O Motherland my Creatress, O Motherland my Maker,
Which full-sadly I knowingly forsake, as from their lords
do runaway slaves, to the woods of Ida I have hastened on foot,
to stay amid the snows and icy dens of beasts,
and to wander through their hidden places lurking full-of-fury,
Where, or in what part, Motherland, may I imagine you are?
My very eyeballs crave to fix their glance towards you,
while for a brief time my mind is freed from wild ravings.
And must I wander over these woods far from home?
From country, goods, friends, and parents, must I part?
Must I leave the forum, palaestra, the stadium and gymnasium?
O wretched wretched soul, it is yours to grieve forever and ever.
For what form is there, whose kind I have not worn?
I a woman, a man, a stripling, and a lad;
I was the gymnasium's flower, the pride of oiled wrestlers:
For my gates were crowded with friends, and my warm threshold
And my home was decked with floral garlands,
Then, when I used to leave my couch at sunrise.
Now, will I bear a life of ministry and slavery to Cybele?
I, a Maenad, a part of me, a sterile trunk of a man?
Must I range over the snow-clad spots of verdurous Ida?
and spend my life beneath the lofty Phrygian peaks,
with the sylvan-seeking stag and woodland-wandering boar?
Now, now I grieve the deed I've done; now, already, I repent!”
As soon as the swift sound left those rosy lips,
borne by new messenger to the Gods' twin ears,
Cybele, unloosing her lions from their joined yoke,
and prodding with left-hand the foe of the herd, speaks thus:
“Come,” she says, “you fierce one, make madness for him,
let fury prick him onwards till he returns through our woods,
he who over-rashly seeks to flee from my empire.
On! thrash your flanks with your tail, endure your strokes;
make the whole place 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 beast, self-exciting, to rapid wrath spurs his spirit,
he rushes, he roars, bursts through the brake with heedless tread.
And when he gained the humid verge of that foamy shore,
and spied the womanish Attis near the opal sea,
he made a bound: the witless wretch fled into the wild wood:
there throughout her whole life a bondsmaid did she stay.
Great Goddess, Goddess Cybele, Dame of Dindymus,
Far from my home may all your anger be, O mistress:
urge others to such actions, to madness others hound.