The Poems and Fragments of Catullus Part 11

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 G.o.d-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 st.u.r.dily, 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 chast.i.ty 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 s.e.xless eunuchs, in a.s.sembly 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 s.e.x 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 c.u.mbrous onerous yoke.

Thither his the votaress eunuchs with an emulous alacrity.

Now faintly sickly plodding to the G.o.ddess'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 l.u.s.trous air, the rude seas, earth's ma.s.sy 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...o...b..is yearning ineffectually to thee.

For a little ere returneth the delirious hour again.

Shall a homeless Attis hie him to the 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 G.o.d's slave? feodary be to Cybele?

Or a Maenad I, an eunuch? or a part of a body slain?