Aislinn A. Melchior

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Catullus 63 Aislinn Melchior Over the deep sea, Attis was carried on a swift raft To touch the wooded groves of Phrygia with his eager foot. Aroused he entered the shade crowned places of the goddess. There, driven on by raging madness, wandering in his senses He struck the weights from his thighs with sharp flint. He felt his limbs freed from his manhood, and stood Pooling the earth’s soil with fresh blood.  Excited he --now She-- raised the smooth skinned drum with her snowy hands --Your drum, Cybele, your initiatory rites, mother. Shaking the hollowed out back of a bull with tender fingers Tremulously she began to sing to her comrades: “Rouse yourselves, go together Gallae, to the deep groves of Cybele! Go together you wandering flocks of the mistress of Dindyma Seeking out strange places like those who are in exile. Comrades, and followers of my sect, with me your leader, You have endured the swift brine and the roaring sea And you have unmanned your bodies despising Venus: Delight the mind of the mistress with your hasty mistake. Let delay and sluggishness yield in your mind:  go as one, follow To the Phrygian home of Cybele, to the Phrygian groves of the goddess, Where the voice of the cymbal sounds, where the drum bellows again And where the Phrygian flute sings deeply with bent reed-- Where ivy-bearing maenads shake their heads in violence Where they rouse the holy secrets with their sharp cries Where that wandering cohort of the goddess sweeps through Where we should run on swift and dancing feet.” At the same time, this counterfeit woman, Attis, sings to his comrades Howling suddenly with a trembling tongue. The smooth skinned drum lows again, the hollowed cymbals sound back And the swift chorus reaches green Ida on hastening foot. At once raving, roused, wandering, gasping for breath Attis, accompanied by drum, leads through the shadowed forests Like a heifer avoiding the indomitable weight of the yoke, And the swift Gallae follow their leader swift-footed. And so, when exhausted they reached the home of Cybele, Much labored and without breaking fast, they snatched at sleep. Slow lassitude covered their eyes with sliding weariness And the raging madness of their minds fled into soft silence. But when Sun, of the golden face, with radiant eyes Cleared the air to white, cleansed hard soil, wild sea And drove away the wraiths of night with lithe thunder-footed horses, Swift Sleep departed, fleeing Attis, already awakening; The goddess Pasithea took Sleep to her trembling breast. And so from soft quiet, without that swift madness At once Attis worshipped again her deeds in her breast. With liquid mind she saw where she was and what she lacked. Her mind on fire, she returned once more to the shallow sea. There, gazing on the marine wastes with weeping eyes She called wretchedly upon her fatherland in a grieving voice, “Fatherland, creator of me, fatherland, my maker, I am wretched leaving you.  As master-fleeing slaves leave Their masters, I placed my foot upon the Idaean groves To be amidst the snow and icy stables of the beasts, And maddened reach their shadowed lairs: Where or in what place do I imagine you founded, fatherland? My eye desires to cast its gaze upon you During this brief time when it lacks that frenzied madness. Will I be carried, removed from my home, into the forest? Fatherland, possessions, friends, parents – will I lack these? Will I be absent from the forum, palaestra, stadium, and gymnasium? Wretched, wretched, we must grieve this more and more, my soul. For what form has been made that I have not entered? I am woman, young man, adolescent, I was boy, I was the flower of the athletes, shining with oil: My doorway was crowded, my threshold warmed by suitors, My house front was crowned with flowering tribute, When I had to leave my chamber with the sun. Will I now endure to be the servant of the gods, mere slave of Cybele? Will I be Maenad, part of myself, a sterile male? Will I dwell on green Ida, iced with cloaking snow? Will I lead my life under the high spires of Phrygia With the forest dwelling hart, the grove roaming boar? Now, now, it grieves me what I have done, now, now, I regret.” When these sounds flew swift from his petaled lips, they Brought his new thoughts to the twinned ears of the goddess. Cybele thereupon unknotted the yoke of her teamed lions And rousing the left one, enemy of the flock, said this: “Rouse yourself,” said she, “Go, fierce one, make the madness strike him, Make it that a blow of madness brings him to the woods again, This man who desires too freely to evade my command. Go, wound your flanks with lashing tail, Make the places echo all with your thundering calls And fierce, shake your muscled neck, your red mane.” Cybele, threatening, said this, and unbound the yoke with her hand. And the wild beast rousing itself, stirred itself to speed Bounding, growling, breaking back the virgin twigs with a sidelong foot. But when he reached the wet places of the white spuming shore And saw tender Attis near the marbled ocean, He assaults.  She, out of her mind, flies into the wild wood: There always, she will be a slave for the whole span of her life. Goddess, great goddess, Cybele, great goddess of Dindyma, May your every madness stay away from my home, Mistress. Lead others aroused, lead others to madness.