To tarry 'mid the snows and where lurk beasts in antres frore
And seek the deeply hidden lairs where furious ferals meet!
Where, Country! whither placed must I now hold thy site and seat? 55
Lief would these balls of eyes direct to thee their line of sight,
Which for a while, a little while, would free me from despite.
Must I for ever roam these groves from house and home afar?
Of country, parents, kith and kin (life's boon) myself debar?
Fly Forum, fly Palestra, fly the Stadium, the Gymnase? 60
Wretch, ah poor wretch, I'm doomed (my soul!) to mourn throughout my
days,
For what of form or figure is, which I failed to enjoy?
I full-grown man, I blooming youth, I stripling, I a boy,
I of Gymnasium erst the bloom, I too of oil the pride:
Warm was my threshold, ever stood my gateways opening wide, 65
My house was ever garlanded and hung with flowery freight,
And couch to quit with rising sun, has ever been my fate:
Now must I Cybebe's she-slave, priestess of gods, be hight?
I Maenad I, mere bit of self, I neutral barren wight?
I spend my life-tide couch't beneath high-towering Phrygian peaks? 70
I dwell on Ida's verdant slopes mottled with snowy streaks,
Where homes the forest-haunting doe, where roams the wildling boar?
Now, now I rue my deed foredone, now, now it irks me sore!"
Whenas from out those roseate lips these accents rapid flew,
Bore them to ears divine consigned a Nuncio true and new; 75
Then Cybebe her lions twain disjoining from their yoke
The left-hand enemy of the herds a-goading thus bespoke:--
"Up feral fell! up, hie with him, see rage his footsteps urge,
See that his fury smite him till he seek the forest verge,
He who with over-freedom fain would fly mine empery. 80
Go, slash thy flank with lashing tail and sense the strokes of thee,
Make the whole mountain to thy roar sound and resound again,
And fiercely toss thy brawny neck that bears the tawny mane!"
So quoth an-angered Cybebe, and yoke with hand untied:
The feral rose in fiery wrath and self-inciting hied, 85
A-charging, roaring through the brake with breaking paws he tore.
But when he reached the humid sands where surges cream the shore,
Spying soft Atys lingering near the marbled pave of sea
He springs: the terror-madded wretch back to the wood doth flee,
Where for the remnant of her days a bondmaid's life led she. 90
Great Goddess