Carmina

Catullus

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Burton, Sir Richard Francis, translator. London, Printed for the Translators, 1894.

  1. And as the gloomy tree-shorn stead, the she-god's home, he sought
  2. There sorely stung with fiery ire and madman's vaguing thought,
  3. Share he with sharpened flint the freight wherewith his form was fraught.
  4. Then as the she-he sensed limbs were void of manly strain
  5. And sighted freshly shed a-ground spot of ensanguined stain,
  6. Snatched she the timbrel's legier load with hands as snowdrops white,
  7. Thy timbrel, Mother Cybele, the firstings of thy rite,
  8. And as her tender finger-tips on bull-back hollow rang
  9. She rose a-grieving and her song to listening comrades sang.
  10. "Up Gallae, hie together, haste for Cybele's deep grove,
  11. Hie to the Dindymnean dame, ye flocks that love to rove;
  12. The which affecting stranger steads as bound in exile's brunt
  13. My sect pursuing led by me have nerved you to confront