HKB
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