Attis
Plunging towards Phrygia over violent water
shot on the wood-slung Berecynthian coast
Attis with urgent feet treads the opaque ground
of the Goddess, his wits fuddled, stung with phrenetic
itch, slices his testicles off with a razor-
flint, sees the signs of new blood spotting
the earth, knows arms, legs, torse, sans
male members and
SHE
ecstatically snatches in delicate hands
the hand-drum of Cybebe, the hand-drum
of forest rites and Cybebe's torture
with nervous fingers taps the hollowed hide
shakes it and shaking summons the Mother's Brood:
"Ololugmos!
To Cybebe's thickets!
You have found the strange coast.
Ololugmos!
Stamp in my footprints!
You are tied to my tether.
Ololugmos!
Capsized in my currents--
unsexing yourselves
in my Love-hate.
Ololugmos! Break the close thicket,
with rabid abandon brighten Dindymia's face
Stamp on Cybebe's ground
stamp where the drug shudders
stamp where the cymbals clang
where the flute drones
where the Maenads convulsively toss their ivied heads
where the protracted scream signals the Maenad rite--
the carlines flit restlessly in the grove
--Come with your quick triple step,
Ololugmos!'
As Attis speaks
the trembling tongues of her neophytes
rise with the drum beats,
the concave cymbals begin clanging.
They head for green Ida.
Attis is a frenzied steer.
She gasps
goaded by yoke-hate
bursts through the holy grove,
the throbbing drums
the foot-mad Gallae, stream in her wake. . . .
And the touch of Cybebe's bower brings lassitude.
Fatigue lowers their lids. They are foodless.
Investing apathy unstrings the manic pitch.
They sleep
Then when the sun's manifold hooves splinter
darkness, and the eyes from the gold mask sweep sky &
earth
& the wild sea, Sleep takes a nimble drive from wak-
ing Attis into the expectant arms of his paramour
--Pasithea.
At once, shedding the night's tranquillity, Attis
relives the pictures in her heart,
freed from the maelstrom,
unclouded, recognises the rootless place where she has come,
her thoughts turned inside out, goes headlong back
to the beach, where she cries to Attica she has lost
for ever . . . looks over the brutal water
that stares back at her through her tears:
"Attica mother & maker, I
like a grateless housecarl fleeing
his mesne, footloose among Ida's
snows among the wood & rock lairs
with the boar caves for an icy hearth,
have I stripped myself of my patrimony
friends, goods, kin?
Are these ungreek landscapes
my new life-home?
Where is Attica?
Where can the pupil open with Attica?
The storm has lifted
and there is no piazza,
where is the stadium? the wrestling ring? the gymnasium
--a fallen life left to tread sorrow.
What have I not known? What shape not been?
A synthetic woman:
once man, once lad, once boy.
Once the flower of the athletes.
Once the pride of the young wrestlers.
My doors & thresholds were warm with friends.
The house full of blossoms greeting
the morning separation from the lover's couch.
And now, I, but part "I",
a plucked torse
a Maenad
familiar of the gods
huscarl of Cybebe,
tethered under these obsessive peaks
rooting with the tree-stag & the boar
in the snow woods,
the pain at Attis' heart outweighs the Attis rage.'
As the words fly from the pink mouth
they lodge in Cybebe's ears
who stoops to the fear-of-flocks
unyokes the left-hand lion
and whispers:
"Attis is truant. Hound Attis hither.
Infect her with fear & desire
for Cybebe's pale. Lash at yourself with
your tail-knot. Drown the whole mountain
with roaring. Let the red mane dreadfully
cloud the brute neck.'
She looses the leash.
The beast self-scourges its flanks
bounds through the brushwood, bursts
on the white-lined sands, appearing
where delicate Attis still stands by the sea.
The demented creature flees to Cybebe's wold
her life-space doomed spent in Cybebe's thrall.
"Great Cybebe, Mother Goddess, Berecynthian Queen,
avert your fury from Catullus' house
goad others to your actions,
others trap in the snarl of frenzy.'
shot on the wood-slung Berecynthian coast
Attis with urgent feet treads the opaque ground
of the Goddess, his wits fuddled, stung with phrenetic
itch, slices his testicles off with a razor-
flint, sees the signs of new blood spotting
the earth, knows arms, legs, torse, sans
male members and
SHE
ecstatically snatches in delicate hands
the hand-drum of Cybebe, the hand-drum
of forest rites and Cybebe's torture
with nervous fingers taps the hollowed hide
shakes it and shaking summons the Mother's Brood:
"Ololugmos!
To Cybebe's thickets!
You have found the strange coast.
Ololugmos!
Stamp in my footprints!
You are tied to my tether.
Ololugmos!
Capsized in my currents--
unsexing yourselves
in my Love-hate.
Ololugmos! Break the close thicket,
with rabid abandon brighten Dindymia's face
Stamp on Cybebe's ground
stamp where the drug shudders
stamp where the cymbals clang
where the flute drones
where the Maenads convulsively toss their ivied heads
where the protracted scream signals the Maenad rite--
the carlines flit restlessly in the grove
--Come with your quick triple step,
Ololugmos!'
As Attis speaks
the trembling tongues of her neophytes
rise with the drum beats,
the concave cymbals begin clanging.
They head for green Ida.
Attis is a frenzied steer.
She gasps
goaded by yoke-hate
bursts through the holy grove,
the throbbing drums
the foot-mad Gallae, stream in her wake. . . .
And the touch of Cybebe's bower brings lassitude.
Fatigue lowers their lids. They are foodless.
Investing apathy unstrings the manic pitch.
They sleep
Then when the sun's manifold hooves splinter
darkness, and the eyes from the gold mask sweep sky &
earth
& the wild sea, Sleep takes a nimble drive from wak-
ing Attis into the expectant arms of his paramour
--Pasithea.
At once, shedding the night's tranquillity, Attis
relives the pictures in her heart,
freed from the maelstrom,
unclouded, recognises the rootless place where she has come,
her thoughts turned inside out, goes headlong back
to the beach, where she cries to Attica she has lost
for ever . . . looks over the brutal water
that stares back at her through her tears:
"Attica mother & maker, I
like a grateless housecarl fleeing
his mesne, footloose among Ida's
snows among the wood & rock lairs
with the boar caves for an icy hearth,
have I stripped myself of my patrimony
friends, goods, kin?
Are these ungreek landscapes
my new life-home?
Where is Attica?
Where can the pupil open with Attica?
The storm has lifted
and there is no piazza,
where is the stadium? the wrestling ring? the gymnasium
--a fallen life left to tread sorrow.
What have I not known? What shape not been?
A synthetic woman:
once man, once lad, once boy.
Once the flower of the athletes.
Once the pride of the young wrestlers.
My doors & thresholds were warm with friends.
The house full of blossoms greeting
the morning separation from the lover's couch.
And now, I, but part "I",
a plucked torse
a Maenad
familiar of the gods
huscarl of Cybebe,
tethered under these obsessive peaks
rooting with the tree-stag & the boar
in the snow woods,
the pain at Attis' heart outweighs the Attis rage.'
As the words fly from the pink mouth
they lodge in Cybebe's ears
who stoops to the fear-of-flocks
unyokes the left-hand lion
and whispers:
"Attis is truant. Hound Attis hither.
Infect her with fear & desire
for Cybebe's pale. Lash at yourself with
your tail-knot. Drown the whole mountain
with roaring. Let the red mane dreadfully
cloud the brute neck.'
She looses the leash.
The beast self-scourges its flanks
bounds through the brushwood, bursts
on the white-lined sands, appearing
where delicate Attis still stands by the sea.
The demented creature flees to Cybebe's wold
her life-space doomed spent in Cybebe's thrall.
"Great Cybebe, Mother Goddess, Berecynthian Queen,
avert your fury from Catullus' house
goad others to your actions,
others trap in the snarl of frenzy.'
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