April 4th | Fastorum Liber Quartus: Aprilis
F C LUDI • MATR • MAG | Pr. Non. | IV.179-372, Ovid relates the origins and rituals of Magna Mater.
Ter sine perpetuo caelum versetur in axe,
ter iungat Titan terque resolvat equos, 180
protinus inflexo Berecyntia tibia cornu
flabit, et Idaeae festa parentis erunt.
ibunt semimares et inania tympana tundent,
aeraque tinnitus aere repulsa dabunt: 185
ipsa sedens molli comitum cervice feretur
Urbis per medias exululata vias.
scaena sonat, ludique vocant. spectate, Quirites,
et fora Marte suo litigiosa vacent.
quaerere multa libet, sed me sonus aeris acuti
terret et horrendo lotos adunca sono. 190
“da, dea, quem sciter.” doctas Cybeleïa neptes
vidit et has curae iussit adesse meae.
“pandite, mandati memores, Heliconis alumnae,
gaudeat assiduo cur dea Magna sono.”
sic ego. sic Erato (mensis Cythereïus illi 195
cessit, quod teneri nomen amoris habet):
“reddita Saturno sors haec erat, ‘optime regum,
a nato sceptris excutiere tuis.’
ille suam metuens, ut quaeque erat edita, prolem
devorat, immersam visceribusque tenet. 200
saepe Rhea questa est, totiens fecunda nec umquam
mater, et indoluit fertilitate sua.
Iuppiter ortus erat (pro magno teste vetustas
creditur; acceptam parce movere fidem):
veste latens saxum caelesti gutture sedit: 205
sic genitor fatis decipiendus erat.
ardua iamdudum resonat tinnitibus Ide,
tutus ut infanti vagiat ore puer.
pars clipeos sudibus, galeas pars tundit inanes:
hoc Curetes habent, hoc Corybantes opus. 210
res latuit, priscique manent imitamina facti;
aera deae comites raucaque terga movent.
cymbala pro galeis, pro scutis tympana pulsant;
tibia dat Phrygios, ut dedit ante, modos.”
desierat. coepi: “cur huic genus acre leonum 215
praebent insolitas ad iuga curva iubas?”
desieram. coepit: “feritas mollita per illam
creditur; id curru testificata suo est.”
“at cur turrifera caput est onerata corona?
an primis turres urbibus illa dedit?” 220
adnuit. “unde venit” dixi “sua membra secandi
impetus?” ut tacui, Pieris orsa loqui:
“Phryx puer in silvis, facie spectabilis, Attis
turrigeram casto vinxit amore deam.
hunc sibi servari voluit, sua templa tueri, 225
et dixit ‘semper fac puer esse velis.’
ille fidem iussis dedit et ‘si mentiar,’ inquit
‘ultima, qua fallam, sit Venus illa mihi.’
fallit et in nympha Sagaritide desinit esse
quod fuit: hinc poenas exigit ira deae. 230
Naida volneribus succidit in arbore factis,
illa perit: fatum Naidos arbor erat.
hic furit et credens thalami procumbere tectum
effugit et cursu Dindyma summa petit
et modo ‘tolle faces!’ ‘remove’ modo ‘verbera!’ clamat; 235
saepe palam Stygias iurat adesse deas.
ille etiam saxo corpus laniavit acuto,
longaque in immundo pulvere tracta coma est,
voxque fuit ‘merui! meritas do sanguine poenas.
a! pereant partes, quae nocuere mihi! 240
a! pereant’ dicebat adhuc, onus inguinis aufert,
nullaque sunt subito signa relicta viri.
venit in exemplum furor hic, mollesque ministri
caedunt iactatis vilia membra comis.”
talibus Aoniae facunda voce Camenae 245
reddita quaesiti causa furoris erat.
“hoc quoque, dux operis, moneas, precor, unde petita
venerit. an nostra semper in urbe fuit?”
“Dindymon et Cybelen et amoenam fontibus Iden
semper et Iliacas Mater amavit opes: 250
cum Troiam Aeneas Italos portaret in agros,
est dea sacriferas paene secuta rates,
sed nondum fatis Latio sua numina posci
senserat, adsuetis substiteratque locis.
post, ut Roma potens opibus iam saecula quinque 255
vidit et edomito sustulit orbe caput,
carminis Euboici fatalia verba sacerdos
inspicit; inspectum tale fuisse ferunt:
‘mater abest: matrem iubeo, Romane, requiras.
cum veniet, casta est accipienda manu.’ 260
obscurae sortis patres ambagibus errant,
quaeve parens absit, quove petenda loco.
consulitur Paean, ‘divum’ qui ‘arcessite Matrem,’
inquit ‘in Idaeo est invenienda iugo.’
mittuntur proceres. Phrygiae tunc sceptra tenebat 265
Attalus: Ausoniis rem negat ille viris.
mira canam. longo tremuit cum murmure tellus,
et sic est adytis diva locuta suis:
‘ipsa peti volui, nec sit mora, mitte volentem.
dignus Roma locus, quo deus omnis eat.’ 270
ille soni terrore pavens ‘proficiscere,’ dixit
‘nostra eris: in Phrygios Roma refertur avos.’
protinus innumerae caedunt pineta secures
illa, quibus fugiens Phryx pius usus erat:
mille manus coeunt, et picta coloribus ustis 275
caelestum Matrem concava puppis habet.
illa sui per aquas fertur tutissima nati
longaque Phrixeae stagna sororis adit
Rhoeteumque rapax Sigeaque litora transit
et Tenedum et veteres Eetionis opes. 280
Cyclades excipiunt, Lesbo post terga relicta,
quaeque Carysteis frangitur unda vadis.
transit et Icarium, lapsas ubi perdidit alas
Icarus et vastae nomina fecit aquae.
tum laeva Creten, dextra Pelopeïdas undas 285
deserit et Veneris sacra Cythera petit.
hinc mare Trinacrium, candens ubi tinguere ferrum
Brontes et Steropes Acmonidesque solent,
aequoraque Afra legit Sardoaque regna sinistris
respicit a remis Ausoniamque tenet. 290
ostia contigerat, qua se Tiberinus in altum
dividit et campo liberiore natat:
omnis eques mixtaque gravis cum plebe senatus
obvius ad Tusci fluminis ora venit.
procedunt pariter matres nataeque nurusque 295
quaeque colunt sanctos virginitate focos.
sedula fune viri contento bracchia lassant:
vix subit adversas hospita navis aquas.
sicca diu fuerat tellus, sitis usserat herbas:
sedit limoso pressa carina vado. 300
quisquis adest operi, plus quam pro parte laborat,
adiuvat et fortis voce sonante manus.
illa velut medio stabilis sedet insula ponto:
attoniti monstro stantque paventque viri.
Claudia Quinta genus Clauso referebat ab alto, 305
nec facies impar nobilitate fuit:
casta quidem, sed non et credita: rumor iniquus
laeserat, et falsi criminis acta rea est;
cultus et ornatis varie prodisse capillis
obfuit, ad rigidos promptaque lingua senes. 310
conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit,
sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus.
haec ubi castarum processit ab agmine matrum
et manibus puram fluminis hausit aquam,
ter caput inrorat, ter tollit in aethera palmas 315
(quicumque aspiciunt, mente carere putant)
summissoque genu voltus in imagine divae
figit et hos edit crine iacente sonos:
‘supplicis, alma, tuae, genetrix fecunda deorum,
accipe sub certa condicione preces. 320
casta negor. si tu damnas, meruisse fatebor;
morte luam poenas iudice victa dea.
sed si crimen abest, tu nostrae pignora vitae
re dabis et castas casta sequere manus’
dixit et exiguo funem conamine traxit 325
(mira, sed et scaena testificata loquar):
mota dea est sequiturque ducem laudatque sequendo:
index laetitiae fertur ad astra sonus.
fluminis ad flexum veniunt (Tiberina priores
Atria dixerunt), unde sinister abit. 330
nox aderat: querno religant in stipite funem
dantque levi somno corpora functa cibo.
lux aderat: querno solvunt a stipite funem;
ante tamen posito tura dedere foco,
ante coronarunt puppem, sine labe iuvencam 335
mactarunt operum coniugiique rudem.
est locus, in Tiberim qua lubricus influit Almo
et nomen magno perdit in amne minor:
illic purpurea canus cum veste sacerdos
Almonis dominam sacraque lavit aquis. 340
exululant comites, furiosaque tibia flatur,
et feriunt molles taurea terga manus.
Claudia praecedit laeto celeberrima voltu,
credita vix tandem teste pudica dea;
ipsa sedens plaustro porta est invecta Capena: 345
sparguntur iunctae flore recente boves.
Nasica accepit. templi non perstitit auctor:
Augustus nunc est, ante Metellus erat.”
substitit hic Erato. mora fit, si cetera quaeram:
“dic,” inquam “parva cur stipe quaerat opes.” 350
“contulit aes populus, de quo delubra Metellus
fecit,” ait “dandae mos stipis inde manet.”
cur vicibus factis ineant convivia, quaero,
tum magis, indictas concelebrentque dapes. 355
“quod bene mutarit sedem Berecyntia,” dixit
“captant mutatis sedibus omen idem.”
institeram, quare primi Megalesia ludi
urbe forent nostra, cum dea (sensit enim)
“illa deos” inquit “peperit. cessere parenti,
principiumque data Mater honoris habet.” 360
“cur igitur Gallos, qui se excidere, vocamus,
cum tantum a Phrygia Gallica distet humus?”
“inter” ait “viridem Cybelen altasque Celaenas
amnis it insana, nomine Gallus, aqua.
qui bibit inde, furit: procul hinc discedite, quis est 365
cura bonae mentis: qui bibit inde, furit.”
“non pudet herbosum” dixi “posuisse moretum
in dominae mensis. an sua causa subest?”
“lacte mero veteres usi narrantur et herbis,
sponte sua si quas terra ferebat” ait. 370
“candidus elisae miscetur caseus herbae,
cognoscat priscos ut dea prisca cibos.”
179 Let the sky revolve thrice on its never-resting axis; let Titan thrice yoke and thrice unyoke his steeds, straightway the Berecyntian1 flute will blow a blast on its bent horn, and the festival of the Idaean Mother will have come.2 Eunuchs will march and thump their hollow drums, and cymbals clashed on cymbals will give out their tinkling notes: seated on the unmanly necks of her attendants, the goddess herself will be borne with howls through the streets in the City’s midst. The stage is clattering, the games are calling. To your places, Quirites! and in the empty law-courts let the war of suitors cease! I would put many questions, but I am daunted by the shrill cymbal’s clash and the bent flute’s thrilling drone. “Grant me, goddess, someone whom I may question.” The Cybelean goddess spied her learned granddaughters3 and bade them attend to my inquiry. “Mindful of her command, ye nurslings of Helicon, disclose the reason why the Great Goddess delights in a perpetual din.” So did I speak, and Erato4 did thus reply (it fell to her to speak of Venus’ month, because her own name is derived from tender love): “Saturn was given this oracle: ‘Thou best of kings, thou shalt be ousted of thy sceptre by thy son.’ In fear, the god devoured his offspring as fast as they were born, and he kept them sunk in his bowels. Many a time did Rhea5 grumble, to be so often big with child, yet never be a mother; she repined at her own fruitfulness. Then Jove was born. The testimony of antiquity passes for good; pray do not shake the general faith. A stone concealed in a garment went down the heavenly throat6; so had fate decreed that the sire should be beguiled. Now rang steep Ida loud and long with clangorous music, that the boy might pule in safety with his infant mouth. Some beat their shields, others their empty helmets with staves; that was the task of the Curetes and that, too, of the Corybantes. The secret was kept, and the ancient deed is still acted in mimicry; the attendants of the goddess thump the brass and the rumbling leather; cymbals they strike instead of helmets, and drums instead of shields; the flute plays, as of yore, the Phrygian airs.”
215 The goddess ended. I began: “Why for her sake doth the fierce breed of lions yield their unwonted manes to the curved yoke?” I ended. She began: “’Tis thought, the wildness of the brute was tamed by her: that she testifies by her (lion-drawn) car.” “But why is her head weighted with a turreted crown? Is it because she gave towers to the first cities?” The goddess nodded assent. “Whence came,” said I, “the impulse to cut their members?” When I was silent, the Pierian goddess began to speak: “In the woods a Phrygian boy of handsome face, Attis by name, had attached the tower-bearing goddess to himself by a chaste passion. She wished that he should be kept for herself and should guard her temple, and she said, “Resolve to be a boy for ever.” He promised obedience, and, “If I lie,” quoth he, “ay the love for which I break faith be my last love of all.” He broke faith; for, meeting the nymph Sagaritis,7 he ceased to be what he had been before. For that the angry goddess wreaked vengeance. By wounds inflicted on the tree she cut down the Naiad, who perished thus; for the fate of the Naiad was bound up with the tree. Attis went mad, and, imagining that the roof of the chamber was falling in, he fled and ran for the top of Mount Dindymus. And he kept crying, at one moment,’ Take away the torches!’ at another,’ Remove the whips!’ And oft he swore that the Stygian goddesses8 were visible to him. He mangled, too, his body with a sharp stone, and trailed his long hair in the filthy dust; and his cry was, ‘I have deserved it! With my blood I pay the penalty that is my due. Ah, perish the parts that were my ruin! Ah, let them perish,’ still he said. He retrenched the burden of his groin, and of a sudden was bereft of every sign of manhood. His madness set an example, and still his unmanly ministers cut their vile members while they toss their hair.” In such words the Aonian Muse eloquently answered my question as to the cause of the madness of the votaries.
247 “Instruct me, too, I pray, my guide, whence was she fetched, whence came? Was she always in our city?” “The Mother Goddess ever loved Dindymus, and Cybele, and Ida, with its delightful springs, and the realm of Ilium. When Aeneas carried Troy to the Italian fields, the goddess almost followed the ships that bore the sacred things; but she felt that fate did not yet call for the intervention of her divinity in Latium, and she remained behind in her accustomed place. Afterwards, when mighty Rome had already seen five centuries,9 and had lifted up her head above the conquered world, the priest consulted the fateful words of the Euboean song. They say that what he found ran thus:’ The Mother is absent; thou Roman, I bid thee seek the Mother. When she shall come, she must be received by chaste hands.’ The ambiguity of the dark oracle puzzled the senators to know who the Parent was, and where she was to be sought. Paean10 was consulted and said, ‘Fetch the Mother of the Gods; she is to be found on Mount Ida.’ Nobles were sent. The sceptre of Phrygia was then held by Attalus; he refused the favour to the Ausonian lords.11 Wonders to tell, the earth trembled and rumbled long, and in her shrine thus did the goddess speak: ‘’Twas my own will that they should send for me. Tarry not: let me go, it is my wish. Rome is a place meet to be the resort of every god.’ Quaking with terror at the words Attalus said, ’Go forth. Thou wilt still be ours. Rome traces its origin to Phrygian ancestors.’ Straightway unnumbered axes fell those pinewoods which had supplied the pious Phrygian12 with timber in his flight: a thousand hands assemble, and the Mother of the Gods is lodged in a hollow ship painted in encaustic colours. She is borne in perfect safety across the waters of her son and comes to the long strait named after the sister of Phrixus13; she passes Rhoeteum, where the tide runs fast, and the Sigean shores, and Tenedos, and Eetion’s ancient realm.14 Leaving Lesbos behind, she came next to the Cyclades and to the wave that breaks on the Carystian shoals.15 She passed the Icarian Sea also, where Icarus lost his wings that slipped, and where he gave his name to a great water. Then she left Crete on the larboard and the Pelopian billows on the starboard, and steered for Cythera, the sacred isle of Venus. Thence she passed to the Trinacrian16 Sea, where Brontes and Steropes and Acmonides17 are wont to dip the white-hot iron. She skirted the African main, and beheld astern to larboard the Sardinian realms, and made Ausonia.
291 “She had reached the mouth where the Tiber divides to join the sea and flows with ampler sweep. All the knights and the grave senators, mixed up with the common folk, came to meet her at the mouth of the Tuscan river. With them walked mothers and daughters and brides, and the virgins who tended the sacred hearths. The men wearied their arms by tugging lustily at the rope; hardly did the foreign ship make head against the stream. A drought had long prevailed; the grass was parched and burnt; the loaded bark sank in the muddy shallows. Every man who lent a hand toiled beyond his strength and cheered on the workers by his cries. Yet the ship stuck fast, like an island firmly fixed in the middle of the sea. Astonished at the portent, the men did stand and quake. Claudia Quinta traced her descent from Clausus18 of old, and her beauty matched her nobility. Chaste was she, though not reputed so. Rumour unkind had wronged her, and a false charge had been trumped up against her: it told against her that she dressed sprucely, that she walked abroad with her hair dressed in varied fashion, that she had a ready tongue for gruff old men. Conscious of innocence, she laughed at fame’s untruths; but we of the multitude are prone to think the worst. When she had stepped forth from the procession of the chaste matrons, and taken up the pure water of the river in her hands, she thrice let it drip on her head, and thrice lifted her palms to heaven (all who looked on her thought that she was out of her mind), and bending the knee she fixed her eyes on the image of the goddess, and with dishevelled hair uttered these words: ‘Thou fruitful Mother of the Gods, graciously accept thy suppliant’s prayers on one condition. They say I am not chaste. If thou dost condemn me, I will confess my guilt; convicted by the verdict of a goddess, I will pay the penalty with my life. But if I am free of crime, give by thine act a proof of my innocency, and, chaste as thou art, do thou yield to my chaste hands.’ She spoke, and drew the rope with a slight effort. My story is a strange one, but it is attested by the stage.19 The goddess was moved, and followed her leader, and by following bore witness in her favour: a sound of joy was wafted to the stars. They came to a bend in the river, where the stream turns away to the left20: men of old named it the Halls of Tiber. Night drew on; they tied the rope to an oaken stump, and after a repast disposed themselves to slumber light. At dawn of day they loosed the rope from the oaken stump; but first they set down a brazier and put incense on it, and crowned the poop, and sacrificed an unblemished heifer that had known neither the yoke nor the bull. There is a place where the smooth Almo flows into the Tiber, and the lesser river loses its name in the great one. There a hoary-labeled priest in purple robes washed the Mistress and her holy things in the waters of Almo. The attendants howled, the mad flute blew, and hands unmanly beat the leathern drums. Attended by a crowd, Claudia walked in front with joyful face, her chastity at last vindicated by the testimony of the goddess. The goddess herself, seated in a wagon, drove in through the Capene Gate; fresh flowers were scattered on the yoked oxen. Nasica received her.21 The name of the founder of the temple has not survived; now it is Augustus; formerly it was Metellus.”22
349 Here Erato stopped. There was a pause to give me time to put the rest of my questions. “Why,” said I, “does the goddess collect money in small coins?” “The people contributed their coppers, with which Metellus built her fane,” said she; “hence the custom of giving a small coin abides.” I asked why then more than at other times people entertain each other to feasts and hold banquets for which they issue invitations. “Because,” said she, “the Berecyntian goddess luckily changed her home, people try to get the same good luck by going from house to house.”23 I was about to ask why the Megalesia are the first games of the year in our city, when the goddess took my meaning and said, “She gave birth to the gods. They gave place to their parent, and the Mother has the honour of precedence.” “Why then do we give the name of Galli to the men who unman themselves, when the Gallic land is so far from Phrygia?” “Between,” said she, “green Cybele and high Celaenae24 a river of mad water flows, ’tis named the Gallus. Who drinks of it goes mad. Far hence depart, ye who care to be of sound mind. Who drinks of it goes mad.” “They think no shame,” said I, “to set a dish of herbs on the tables of the Mistress. Is there a good reason at the bottom of it?” “People of old,” she answered, “are reported to have subsisted on pure milk and such herbs as the earth bore of its free will. White cheese is mixed with pounded herbs, that the ancient goddess may know the ancient foods.”
M, the editor of Ovid Daily, has also written a translation of Liber IV.
Phrygian (from Mount Berecyntus).
Cybele, the Asiatic goddess. The feast was called the Megalensian (Megale, great goddess). Her attendants, the Galli, were eunuchs.
The Muses, whose father Jupiter was son of Cybele.
Eros, Love.
Cybele.
Of Saturn (Cronos).
No doubt named from the river Sangarius or Sagaris, in Phrygia. She appears to have been nymph of a neighbouring tree. The jealous goddess punished Attis by driving him mad.
The Furies.
In 204 B.C., year of Rome 549, the Sibylline books were consulted. The Sibyl lived at Cumae, a colony of Euboea. See Livy xxix. 10, 11, 14.
Delphic Apollo. The envoys sent from Rome, M. Valerius Laevinus, M. Caecilius Metellus, Ser. Sulpicius Gallus, consulted the oracle at Deiphi on their way and received a favourable answer.
This is not borne out by Livy.
Aeneas.
Helles-pontus. See above, iii. 851 note.
Eëtion was father of Andromache, and king of Thebe in the Troad.
South of Euboea.
Sicilian.
Usually called Pyracmon. These are the three Cyclopes who forged Jupiter’s thunderbolts under Mount Etna.
A Sabine leader, said to have assisted Aeneas: Virgil, Aen. vii. 706. Ancestor of the Claudian house.
It was probably acted at the Megalensia, the Great Mother’s festival.
Left for one ascending the Tiber.
P. Corn. Scipio Nasica, a young man, was commissioned to receive the goddess.
The temple was dedicated in 191 B.C. It was burnt down in 111 B.C., when one Metellus restored it (? Q. Caecilius Metellus); and in A.D. 3, when Augustus restored it (Mon. Ancyr. iv. 19, in L.C.L. Velleius Paterculus, p. 376).
This feast was a great time for hospitality; and the words used for invitations were mutitare, mutitatio.
In Phrygia.