Λεγουσιν έκμανηναι.”
Atis, it appears from the poem of Catullus, was a beautiful youth, probably of Greece, who, forsaking his home and parents, sailed with a few companions to Phrygia, and, having landed, hurried to the grove consecrated to the great goddess Cybele,—
“Adiitque opaca sylvis redimita loca Deæ,”
There, struck with superstitious phrensy, he qualified himself for the service of that divinity; and, snatching the musical instruments used in her worship, he exhorted his companions, who had followed his example, to ascend to the temple of Cybele. At this part of the poem, we follow the new votary of the Phrygian goddess through all his wild traversing of woods and mountains, till at length, having reached the temple, Atis and his companions drop asleep, exhausted by fatigue and mental distraction. Being tranquillized in some measure by a night’s repose, Atis becomes sensible of the misery of his situation; and, struck with horror at his rash deed, he returns to the sea-shore. There he casts his eyes, bathed in tears, over the ocean homeward; and comparing his former happiness with his present wretched condition, he pours forth a complaint unrivalled in energy and pathos. Gibbon talks of the different emotions produced by the transition of Atis from the wildest enthusiasm to sober pathetic complaint for his irretrievable loss[501]; but, in fact, his complaint is not soberly pathetic—to which the Galliambic measure would be little suited: it is, on the contrary, the most impassioned expression of mental agony and bitter regret in the wide compass of Roman literature:
“Abero foro, palæstrâ, stadio et gymnasiis?
Miser, ah miser! querendum est etiam atque etiam, anime:
Ego puber, ego adolescens, ego ephebus, ego puer;
Ego gymnasii fui flos, ego eram decus olei;
Mihi januæ frequentes, mihi limina tepida,
Mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat,