by Catullus
So comes worthy defeat; no victory calls to the careless.
Come then, in even race let thought their melody rival;
They must open anon; ‘twere better anon be replying.
Hymen O Hymenaeus, O Hymen come Hymenaeus.
VIRGINS.
Hesper, moveth in heaven a light more tyrannous ever? 20
Thou from a mother’s arms canst wrest her daughter asunder,
Wrest from a mother’s arms her daughter woefully clinging,
Then to the burning youth his virgin beauty deliver.
Foes in a new-sack’d town, when wrought they crueller ever?
Hymen O Hymenaeus, O Hymen come Hymenaeus. 25
YOUTHS.
Hesper, shineth in heaven a light more genial ever?
Thou with a bridal flame true lovers’ unity crownest,
All which duly the men, which plighted duly the parents,
Then completed alone, when thou in splendour awakest.
When shone an happier hour than thy god-speeded arriving? 30
Hymen O Hymenaeus, O Hymen come Hymenaeus.
VIRGINS.
Sisters, Hesper a fellow of our bright company taketh.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 35
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Hymen O Hymenaeus, O Hymen come Hymenaeus.
YOUTHS.
. . . . . . . . . . . 40
. . . . . . . . . .
Hesper, awaiting thee each sentinel holdeth alarum.
Night veils love’s false thieves; thieves still when, Hesper, another
Name, but unalter’d still, thou tak’st them surely, returning. (35)
Yet be the maidens pleas’d in woeful fancy to chide thee. 45
Maybe for all they chide, their hearts do inly desire thee.
Hymen O Hymenaeus, O Hymen come Hymenaeus.
VIRGINS.
Look in a garden-croft when a flower privily growing,
Hid from grazing kine, by ploughshare never y-broken, (40)
Strok’d by the breeze, by the sun nurs’d sturdily, rear’d by
the showers; 50
Many a wistful boy, and maidens many desire it:
Yet if a slender nail hath nipt his bloom to deflour it,
Never a wistful boy, nor maidens any desire it:
Such is a girl untoy’d with as yet, yet lovely to kinsmen; (45)
Once her body profan’d, herflow’r of chastity blighted, 55
Boys no more she delights, nor seems so lovely to maidens;
Hymen O Hymenaeus, O Hymen come Hymenaeus.
YOUTHS.
Look as a lone lorn vine in a bare field sorrily growing,
Never an arm uplifts, no grape to maturity ripens, (50)
Only with headlong weight her tender body declining, 60
Bows, till topmost spray and roots meet feebly together;
Her no peasant swain, nor bullock tendeth her ever;
Yet to the bachelor elm if marriage-fortune unite her,
Many a peasant tills and bullocks many about her; (55)
Such is a maid untoy’d with as yet, in loneliness aging; 65
Wins she a bridegroom meet, in time’s warm fulness arriving,
So to the man more dear, and less unlovely to parents.
O then, clasp thy love, nor fight, fair maiden, against him.
Sin ‘twere surely to fight; thy father gave to his arms thee, (60)
Father’s self and mother; obey nor wrongly defy them. 70
. . . . . . . . . .
Virgin’s crown thou claim’st not alone, but partly the parents,
Father’s one whole part, one goes to the mother allotted,
Rests one only to thee; O fight not with them alone thou,
Both to a son their rights and both their dowry deliver. 75 (65)
Hymen O Hymenaeus, O Hymen come Hymenaeus.
LXIII.
In a swift ship Attis hasting over ocean a mariner
When he gained the wood, the Phrygian, with a foot of agility,
When he near’d the leafy forest, dark sanctuary divine;
By unearthly fury frenzied, a bewildered agony,
With a flint of edge he shatter’d to the ground his humanity. 5
Then aghast to see the lost limbs, the deform’d inutility,
While still the gory dabble did anew the soil pollute,
With a snowy palm the woman took affrayed a taborine.
Taborine, the trump that hails thee, Cybele, thy initiant.
Then a dainty finger heaving to the tremulous hide o’ the bull, 10
He began this invocation to the company, spirit-awed.
“To the groves, ye sexless eunuchs, in assembly to Cybele,
Lost sheep that err rebellious to the lady Dindymene;
Ye, who all awing for exile in a country of aliens,
My unearthly rule obeying to be with me, my retinue, 15
Could aby the surly salt seas’ mid inexorability,
Could in utter hate to lewdness your sex dishabilitate;
Let a gong clash glad emotion, set a giddy fury to roam,
All slow delay be banish’d, thither his ye thither away
To the Phrygian home, the wild wood, to the sanctuary divine; 20
Where rings the noisy cymbal, taborines are in echoing,
On a curved oat the Phrygian deep pipeth a melody,
With a fury toss the Maenads clad in ivies a frolic head,
To a barbarous ululation the religious orgy wakes,
Where fleets across the silence Cybele’s holy family; 25
Thither his we, so beseems us; to a mazy measure away.”
Thus as Attis, a woman, Attis, not a woman, urg’d the rest,
On a sudden yell’d in huddling agitation every tongue,
Taborines give airy murmur, give a clangorous echo gongs,
With a rush the brotherhood hastens to the woods, the bosom of Ide. 30
Then in agony, breathless, errant, flush’d wearily, cometh on
Taborine behind him, Attis, thoro’ leafy glooms a guide,
As a restive heifer yields not to the cumbrous onerous yoke.
Thither his the votaress eunuchs with an emulous alacrity.
Now faintly sickly plodding to the goddess’s holy shrine, 35
They took the rest which easeth long toil, nor ate withal.
Slow sleep descends on eyelids ready drowsily to decline,
In a soft repose departeth the devout spirit-agony.
When awoke the sun, the golden, that his eyes heaven-orient
Scann’d lustrous air, the rude seas, earth’s massy solidity, 40
When he smote the shadowy twilight with his healthy team sublime,
Then arous’d was Attis; o’er him sleep hastily fled away
To Pasithea’s arms immortal with a tremulous hovering.
But awaked from his reposing, the delirious anguish o’er,
When as Attis’ heart recalled him to the past solitarily, 45
Saw clearly where he stood, what, an annihilate apathy,
With a soul that heaved within him, to the water he fled again.
Then as o’er the waste of ocean with a rainy eye he gazed
To the land of home he murmur’d miserable a soliloquy.
“Mother-home of all affection, dear home, my nativity, 50
Whom in anguish I deserting, as in hatred a runaway
From a master, hither have hurried to the lonely woods of Ide,
To be with the snows, the wild beasts, in a wintery domicile,
To be near each savage houser that a surly fury provokes,
What horizon, O beloved, may attain to thee anywhere? 55
Yet an eyeless orb is yearning ineffectually to thee.
For a little ere returneth the delirious hour again.
Shall a homeless Attis hie him to th
e groves uninhabited?
Shall he leave a country, wealth, friends? bid a sire, a mother, adieu?
The palaestra lost, the forum, the gymnasium, the course? 60
O unhappy, fall a-weeping, thou unhappy soul, for aye.
For is honour of any semblance, any beauty but of it I?
Who, a woman here, in order was a man, a youth, a boy,
To the sinewy ring a fam’d flower, the gymnasium’s applause.
With a throng about the portal, with a populace in the gate, 65
With a flowery coronal hanging upon every column of home,
When anew my chamber open’d, as awoke the sunny morn.
O am I to live the god’s slave? feodary be to Cybele?
Or a Maenad I, an eunuch? or a part of a body slain?
Or am I to range the green tracts upon Ida snowy-chill? 70
Be beneath the stately caverns colonnaded of Asia?
Be with hind that haunts the covert, or in hursts that house the boar?
Woe, woe the deed accomplish’d! woe, woe, the shame to me!”
From rosy lips ascending when approached the gusty cry
To celestial ears recording such a message inly borne, 75
Cybele, the thong relaxing from a lion-haled yoke,
Said, aleft the goad addressing to the foe that awes the flocks —
“Come, a service; haste, my brave one; let a fury the madman arm,
Let a fury, a frenzy prick him to return to the wood again,
This is he my hest declineth, the unheedy, the runaway. 80
From an angry tail refuse not to abide the sinewy stroke,
To a roar let all the regions echo answer everywhere,
On a nervy neck be tossing that uneasy tawny mane.”
So in ire she spake, adjusting disunitedly then her yoke
At his own rebuke the lion doth his heart to a fury spur, 85
With a step, a roar, a bursting unarrested of any brake.
But anear the foamy places when he came, to the frothy beach,
When he saw the sexless Attis by the seas’ level opaline,
Then he rushed upon him; affrighted to the wintery wood he flew,
Cybele’s for aye, for all years, in her order a votaress. 90
Holy deity, great Cybele, holy lady Dindymene,
Be to me afar for ever that inordinate agony.
O another hound to madness, O another hurry to rage!
LXIV.
Born on Pelion height, so legend hoary relateth,
Pines once floated adrift on Neptune billowy streaming
On to the Phasis flood, to the borders Æætean.
Then did a chosen array, rare bloom of valorous Argos,
Fain from Colchian earth her fleece of glory to ravish, 5
Dare with a keel of swiftness adown salt seas to be fleeting,
Swept with fir-blades oary the fair level azure of Ocean.
Then that deity bright, who keeps in cities her high ward,
Made to delight them a car, to the light breeze airily scudding,
Texture of upright pine with a keel’s curved rondure uniting. 10
That first sailer of all burst ever on Amphitrite.
Scarcely the forward snout tore up that wintery water,
Scarcely the wave foamed white to the reckless harrow of oarsmen,
Straight from amid white eddies arose wild faces of Ocean,
Nereid, earnest-eyed, in wonderous admiration. 15
Then, not after again, saw ever mortal unharmed
Sea-born Nymphs unveil limbs flushing naked about them.
Stark to the nursing breasts from foam and billow arising.
Then, so stories avow, burn’d Peleus hotly to Thetis,
Then to a mortal lover abode not Thetis unheeding, 20
Then did a father agree Peleus with Thetis unite him.
O in an aureat hour, O born in bounteous ages,
God-sprung heroes, hail: hail, mother of all benediction,
You my song shall address, you melodies everlasting.
Thee most chiefly, supreme in glory of heavenly bridal, 25
Peleus, stately defence of Thessaly. Iuppiter even
Gave thee his own fair love, thy mortal pleasure approving.
Thee could Thetis inarm, most beauteous Ocean-daughter?
Tethys adopt thee, her own dear grandchild’s wooer usurping?
Ocean, who earth’s vast globe with a watery girdle inorbeth? 30
When the delectable hour those days did fully determine,
Straightway then in crowds all Thessaly flock’d to the palace,
Thronging hosts uncounted, a company joyous approaching.
Many a gift they carry, delight their faces illumines.
Left is Scyros afar, and Phthia’s bowery Tempe, 35
Vacant Crannon’s homes, unvisited high Larisa,
Towards Pharsalia’s halls, Pharsalia’s only they hie them.
Bides no tiller afield; necks soften of oxen in idlesse;
Feel not a prong’d crook’d hoe lush vines all weedily trailing;
Tears no steer deep clods with a downward coulter unearthed; 40
Prunes no hedger’s bill broad-verging verdurous arbours;
Steals a deforming rust on ploughs left rankly to moulder.
But that sovran abode, each sumptuous inly retiring
Chamber, aflame with gold, with silver is all resplendent;
Thrones gleam ivory-white; cup-crown’d blaze brightly the tables; 45
All the domain with treasure of empery gaudily flushes.
There, set deeply within the remotest centre, a bridal
Bed doth a goddess inarm; smooth ivory glossy from Indies,
Robed in roseate hues, rich seashells’ purple adorning.
It was a broidery freak’d with tissue of images olden, 50
One whose curious art did blazon valour of heroes.
Gazing forth from a beach of Dia the billow-resounding,
Look’d on a vanish’d fleet, on Theseus quickly departing,
Restless in unquell’d passion, a feverous heart, Ariadne.
Scarcely her eyes yet seem their seeming clearly to vision. 55
You might guess that arous’d from slumber’s drowsy betrayal,
Sand-engirded, alone, then first she knew desolation.
He the betrayer — his oars with fugitive hurry the waters
Beat, each promise of old to the winds given idly to bear them.
Him from amid shore-weeds doth Minos’ daughter, in anguish 60
Rigid, a Bacchant-form, dim-gazing stonily follow,
Stonily still, wave-tost on a sea of troublous affliction.
Holds not her yellow locks the tiara’s feathery tissue;
Veils not her hidden breast light brede of drapery woven;
Binds not a cincture smooth her bosom’s orbed emotion. 65
Widely from each fair limb that footward-fallen apparel
Drifts its lady before, in billowy salt loose-playing.
Not for silky tiara nor amice gustily floating
Recks she at all any more; thee, Theseus, ever her earnest
Heart, all clinging thought, all chained fancy requireth. 70
Ah unfortunate! whom with miseries ever crazing,
Thorns in her heart deep planted, affray’d Erycina to madness,
From that earlier hour, when fierce for victory Theseus
Started alert from a beach deep-inleted of Piræus,
Gain’d Gortyna’s abode, injurious halls of oppression. 75
Once, ’tis sung in stories, a dire distemper atoning
Death of an ill-blest prince, Androgeos, angrily slaughter’d,
Taxed of her youthful array, her maidenly bloom fresh-glowing,
Feast to the monster bull, Cecropia, ransom-laden.
Then, when a plague so deadly, the garrison undermining, 80
Spent that slender city, his Athens dearly to rescue,
Sooner lif
e Theseus and precious body did offer,
Ere his country to Crete freight corpses, a life in seeming.
So with a ship fast-fleeted, a gale blown gently behind him,
Push’d he his onward journey to Minos’ haughty dominion. 85
Him for very delight when a virgin fondly desiring
Gazed on, a royal virgin, in odours silkily nestled,
Pure from a maiden’s couch, from a mother’s pillowy bosom,
Like some myrtle, anear Eurotas’ water arising,
Like earth’s myriad hues, spring’s progeny, rais’d to the breezes; 90
Droop’d not her eyes their gaze unquenchable, ever-burning
Save when in each charm’d limb to the depths enfolded, a sudden
Flame blazed hotly within her, in all her marrow abiding.
O thou cruel of heart, thou madding worker of anguish,
Boy immortal, of whom joy springs with misery blending, 95
Yea, thou queen of Golgi, of Idaly leaf-embower’d,
O’er what a fire love-lit, what billows wearily tossing,
Drave ye the maid, for a guest so sunnily lock’d deep sighing.
What most dismal alarms her swooning fancy did echo!
Oft what a sallower hue than gold’s cold glitter upon her! 100
Whiles, heart-hungry in arms that monster deadly to combat,
Theseus drew towards death or victory, guerdon of honour.
Yet not lost the devotion, or offer’d idly the virgin’s
Gifts, as her unvoic’d lips breathed incense faintly to heaven.
As on Taurus aloft some oak agitatedly waving 105
Tosses his arms, or a pine cone-mantled, oozily rinded,
When as his huge gnarled trunk in furious eddies a whirlwind
Riving wresteth amain; down falleth he, upward hoven,
Falleth on earth; far, near, all crackles brittle around him,
So to the ground Theseus his fallen foeman abasing, 110
Slew, that his horned front toss’d vainly, a sport to the breezes.
Thence in safety, a victor, in height of glory returned,
Guiding errant feet to a thread’s impalpable order.
Lest, upon egress bent thro’ tortuous aisles labyrinthine,
Walls of blindness, a maze unravell’d ever, elude him. 115
Yet, for again I come to the former story, beseems not
Linger on all done there; how left that daughter a gazing
Father, a sister’s arms, her mother woefully clinging,
Mother, who o’er that child moan’d desperate, all heart-broken;
How not in home that maid, in Theseus only delighted; 120
