Attis
(Poet's title: Atys)
Set by Schubert:
D 585
[September 1817]
Der Knabe seufzt übers grüne Meer,
Vom fernenden Ufer kam er her,
Er wünscht sich mächtige Schwingen:
Die sollten ihn ins heimische Land,
Woran ihn ewige Sehnsucht mahnt,
Im rauschenden Fluge bringen.
O Heimweh! unergründlicher Schmerz,
Wie folterst du das junge Herz.
Kann Liebe dich nicht verdrängen,
So willst du die Frucht, die herrlich reift,
Die Gold und flüssiger Purpur streift,
Mit tödlichem Feuer versengen.
Ich liebe, ich rase, ich hab sie gesehn,
Die Lüfte durchschnitt sie im Sturmeswehn
Auf löwengezogenem Wagen.
Ich musste flehen, o nimm mich mit –
Mein Leben ist düster und abgeblüht.
Wirst du meine Bitte versagen?
Sie schaute mit gütigem Lächeln zurück,
Nach Thrazien zog uns das Löwengespann,
Da dien ich als Priester ihr eigen,
Den Rasenden kränzt ein seliges Glück,
Der Aufgewachte schaudert zurück,
Kein Gott will sich hülfreich erzeigen.
Dort hinter den Bergen, im scheidenden Strahl
Des Abends entschlummert mein väterlich Tal,
O wär ich jenseits der Wellen,
Seufzet der Knabe, doch Zimbelgetön
Verkündet die Göttin, er stürzt von Höhn
In Gründe und waldige Stellen.
The lad sighs looking out over the green sea,
He came here from a distant shore.
He would like to have powerful wings,
Which would take him back to his native country
(Which an eternal longing reminds him of),
Carrying him off on a swirling flight.
“Oh homesickness! unfathomable agony,
How you are tormenting this young heart;
Can love not dispel you?
So do you want this fruit that ripens so magnificently,
This fruit striped with gold and flowing crimson,
Do you want to scorch it with deadly fire?
I love, I go into ecstasies, I have seen her,
She cut through the air in a whirling storm
On a chariot pulled by lions,
I had to plead; Oh, take me with you!
My life is dismal and wilted;
Are you going to deny my request?
She looked back with a kind smile;
The lion-cart brought us to Thrace,
Where I have been serving as a priest, dedicated to her.”
In his ecstasy he is wreathed with a blissful happiness
But when he wakes up he shudders and recoils –
No god is going to appear and offer help.
“Over there, behind the mountains, in the departing rays
Of the evening, my paternal valley is falling asleep;
Oh, if only I were beyond those waves!”
The lad sighs, but the sound of cymbals
Proclaims the arrival of the goddess; he plunges from the heights
Down to earth and into a forested area.
All translations into English that appear on this website, unless otherwise stated, are by Malcolm Wren. You are free to use them on condition that you acknowledge Malcolm Wren as the translator and schubertsong.uk as the source. Unless otherwise stated, the comments and essays that appear after the texts and translations are by Malcolm Wren and are © Copyright.
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Themes and images in this text:
Air The ancient world Begging and pleading By water – beaches and general Carts and chariots Cymbals Evening and the setting sun Fading and losing colour Fire Frenzy and lack of control Fruit Gold Green Hearts Here and there High, low and deep Home (Heimat) Leaping and jumping Lions Longing and yearning Mother and child Mother Nature Mountains and cliffs Pain Pine trees Priests Rays of light Red and purple Riding – carriages Sighs and sighing The sea Storms Valleys Waves – Welle Wings Woods – large woods and forests (Wald)
This is a topic and a text that was never intended for the masses. Mayrhofer has taken one of the most obscure and enigmatic figures in Greek and Roman mythology and constructed a poem in which the narrator fails to make clear the course of events, and in which the central character appears to express complex (and possibly contradictory) emotions and attitudes. We are in the world of the ancient mystery religions, where only initiates were allowed to participate in the rites connected with the Mother Goddess Cybele and her son / consort / priest Attis, and so we outsiders should not expect much in the way of clarity. Mayrhofer has also clearly used the story to explore some of the pain and frustration of his own life and context, adding another layer of complexity to the verses.
The Anatolian fertility goddess Cybele (her home was said to be Mount Ida in Phrygia) never became one of the Greek divinities connected with Mount Olympus, though she shares some of the characteristics of Demeter / Ceres (cf. D 323 Klage der Ceres), and her Maenad followers are very similar to the devotees of Dionysus / Bacchus. Like Dionysus, she was the focus of a mystery cult, which became particularly popular at the time of the restoration of Paganism in the Roman Empire under the Emperor Julian in the mid 4th century. How many of her worshippers followed the example of Attis by castrating themselves in their ecstasy will never be known.
Mayrhofer almost certainly based his poem on three sources: one modern (Moritz) and two ancient (Ovid and Catullus). Karl Philipp Moritz published Götterlehre oder mythologische Dichtungen des Altens (Theology or Mythological Poems of the Ancient World) in Berlin in 1791. This work included a chapter on ‘Atys’ (pp.333-4), who (like Ganymed) is presented as one of ‘Die Lieblinge der Götter’ (The favourites of the gods). Just as Jupiter was drawn to Ganymed so Cybele was attracted to Attis. However, according to Moritz, the goddess was jealous of his affection for the nymph Sangaris. It was as a result of this that Attis punished himself with ‘Ermannung’ (emasculation). Moritz then writes the following summary, which appears to have been the catalyst for Mayrhofer’s poem:
Eine schöne Dichtung aus dem Alterthum stellt ihn dar, am Ufer des Meeres stehend, und eine kleine Weile seines Bewußtseyns mächtig, sehnsuchtsvoll nach dem entferntem Ufer hinüberblickend, wo er im Schooße seiner Eltern, und mit seinem Gespielen, der Kindheit süßen Traum verlebte. Aber ihm nähert sich die Göttin auf ihrem mit Löwen bespannten Wagen, - und plötzlich ergreift den Atys wieder rasender Muth; er eilt des Berges waldigten Gipfel hinauf, um alle Tage seines Lebens in weibischer Weichlichkeit der mächtigen Göttin zu dienen. A beautiful poem from the ancient world presents him standing by the sea-shore, and for a while in control of his conscious thoughts looking out longingly towards the distant shore where he had spent the sweet dream of childhood along with his playmates in the bosom of his family. But the goddess approaches him on her chariot drawn by lions, - and suddenly Attis summons up another burst of raging courage; he hurries up to the wooded summit of the mountain in order to spend the rest of his life serving the powerful goddess with wifely effeminacy.
From this account Mayrhofer seems to have taken the opening setting (looking out longingly over the sea to a lost homeland) but he has located it at a different stage in Attis’s story. Similarly the final reference to a wooded hillside is no longer about the moment when Attis first became a priest in response to Cybele’s arrival on her lion-drawn cart but a later incident when he decided he had to escape from her.
Mayrhofer could have expected some of his original readers to be familiar with at least one reference to Attis in classical literature, a passage about a wooded hillside from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Here Attis is said to have been transformed into the trunk of a pine tree, sacred to the goddess Cybele (perhaps the tree shedding its cones was connected with both fertility rituals and the tradition of the goddess’s priests cutting off their own testicles).
Collis erat collemque super planissima campi area, quam viridem faciebant graminis herbae. Umbra loco deerat: qua postquam parte resedit dis genitus vates et fila sonantia movit, umbra loco venit. Non Chaonis afuit arbor. non nemus Heliadum, non frondibus aesculus altis, nec tiliae molles, nec fagus et innuba laurus, et coryli fragiles et fraxinus utilis hastis enodisque abies curvataque glandibus ilex et platanus genialis acerque coloribus impar amnicolaeque simul salices et aquatica lotos perpetuoque virens buxum tenuesque myricae et bicolor myrtus et bacis caerula tinus. Vos quoque, flexipedes hederae, venistis et una pampineae vites et amictae vitibus ulmi, ornique et piceae pomoque nerata rubenti arbutus et lentae, victoris praemia, palmae et succincta comas hirsutaque vertice pinus, grata deum matri; siquidem Cybeleius Attis exuit hac ominem truncoque induruit illo. Ovid, Metamorphoses 10: 86 There was a hill, and, on the hill, a wide area of level ground, turfed with fresh blades of grass: shade was absent there: but when the poet, born of the god, sounded the strings of his lyre, shade gathered there. Jupiter’s Chaonian oak-tree came; and Phaethon’s sisters, the Heliades, the poplars; the durmast oak with its deep foliage; the soft lime-tree; the beech; the virgin sweet-bay, laurel; the hazel, frail; the ash-tree, used for spears; the sweeping silver-fir: holm-oak, heavy with acorns; pleasant plane-tree; the many-coloured maple; with the river-haunting willow; lotus, water-lover; boxwood ever-verdant; the slender tamarisk; the myrtle, with, over and under its leaves, the two shades of green; and the blue-berried wild-bay, laurus tinus. You came, also, twining ivy, together with shooting vines; the vine-supporting elms; the flowering ‘manna’ ash; the spruce; the strawberry tree, weighed down with its red fruit; the pliant palms, the winner’s prize; and you, the shaggy-topped pine tree, armed with needles, sacred to Cybele, mother of the gods, since Attis exchanged his human form for you, and hardened in your trunk. English translation by A. S. Kline, 2000 www.poetryintranslation.com
However, it is clear that this is not the ‘beautiful poem from the ancient world’ about Attis that Moritz referred to. Mayrhofer’s major ancient source must therefore have been Catullus’s ‘Song 63’. Here the course of events is made clear: Attis castrates himself and leads the worship of Cybele in a fit of frenzy or ecstasy, but on waking up the following morning starts to look out over the ocean and regrets what he has done. When Cybele begins to suspect his desire to leave her service he has to flee her vengeance and he escapes into the woods (the poem ends with the implication that he is there turned into a pine tree).
Super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria
Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit
adiitque opaca silvis redimita loca deae,
stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, vagus animis
devolvit ili acuto sibi pondera silice.
itaque ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine viro,
etiam recente terrae sola sanguine maculans
niveis citata cepit manibus leve typanum,
typanum, tubam Cybelles, tua, mater, initia,
quatiensque terga tauri teneris cava digitis
canere haec suis adorta est tremebunda comitibus
“agite ite ad alta, Gallae, Cybeles nemora simul,
simul ite, Dindymenae dominae vaga pecora,
aliena quae petentes velut exsules loca
sectam meam exsecutae duce me mihi comites
rapidum salum tulistis truculentaque pelagi
et corpus evirastis Veneris nimio odio,
hilarate erae citatis erroribus animum.
mora tarda mente cedat; simul ite, sequimini
Phrygiam ad domum Cybelles, Phrygia ad nemora deae,
ubi cymbalum sonat vox, ubi tympana reboant,
tibicen ubi canit Phryx curvo grave calamo,
ubi capita maenades vi iaciunt hederigerae,
ubi sacra sancta acutis ululatibus agitant,
ubi suevit illa divae volitare vaga cohors,
quo nos decet citatis celerare tripudiis.”
simul haec comitibus Attis cecinit notha mulier,
thiasus repente linguis trepidantibus ululat,
leve tympanum remugit, cava cymbala recrepant,
viridem citus adit Idam properante pede chorus.
furibunda simul anhelans vaga vadit animam agens
comitata tympano Attis per opaca nemora dux,
veluti iuvenca vitans onus indomita iugi:
rapidae ducem secuntur Gallae properipedem.
itaque, ut domum Cybelles tetigere lassulae,
nimio e labore somnum capiunt sine Cerere.
piger his labante langore oculos sopor operit:
abit in quiete molli rabidus furor animi.
sed ubi oris aurci Sol radiantibus oculis
lustravit aethera album, sola dura, mare ferum,
pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus,
ibi Somnus excitam Attin fugiens citus abiit:
trepidante eum recepit dea Pasithea sinu.
ita de quiete molli rapida sine rabie
simul ipsa pectore Attis sua facta recoluit,
liquidaque mente vidit sine quis ubique foret,
animo aestuante rusum reditum ad vada tetulit.
ibi maria vasta visens lacrimantibus oculis
patriam adlocuta maesta est ita voce miseriter:
“patria o mei creatrix, patria o mea genetrix,
ego quam miser relinquens, dominos ut erifugae
famuli solent, ad Idae tetuli nemora pedem,
ut apud nivem et ferarum gelida stabula forem
et earum omnia adirem furibunda latibula,
ubinam aut quibus locis te positam, patria, reor?
cupit ipsa pupula ad te sibi derigere aciem,
rabie fera carens dum breve tempus animus est.
egone a mea remota haec ferar in nemora domo?
patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus abero?
abero foro, palaestra, stadio, et gymnasiis?
miser ah miser, querendum est etiam atque etiam, anime.
quod enim genus figurae est ego non quod obierim?
ego mulier, ego adulescens, ego ephebus, ego puer,
ego gymnasi fui flos, ego eram decus olei:
mihi ianuae frequentes, mihi limina tepida,
mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat,
linquendum ubi esset orto mihi sole cubiculum.
ego nunc deum ministra et Cybeles famula ferar?
ego maenas, ego mei pars, ego vir sterilis ero?
ego viridis algida Idae nive amicta loca colam?
ego vitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus,
ubi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus?
iam iam dolet quod egi, iam iamque paenitet.”
roseis ut huic labellis sonitus citus abiit
geminas deorum ad aures nova nuntia referens,
ibi iuncta iuga resoluens Cybele leonibus
laevumque pecoris hostem stimulans ita loquitur.
“Agedum,” inquit, “age ferox i, fac ut hunc furor agitet,
fac uti furoris ictu reditum in nemora ferat,
mea libere nimis qui fugere imperia cupit.
age caede terga cauda, tua verbera patere,
fac cuncta mugienti fremitu loca retonent,
rutilam ferox torosa cervice quate iubam.”
ait haec minax Cybelle religatque iuga manu.
ferus ipse sese adhortans rabidum incitat animo,
vadit, fremit, refringit virgulta pede vago.
at ubi umida albicantis loca litoris adiit
tenerumque vidit Attin prope marmora pelagi,
facit impetum: ille demens fugit in nemora fera:
ibi semper omne vitae spatium famula fuit.
dea magna, dea Cybelle, dea domina Dindymi,
procul a mea tuus sit furor omnis, era, domo:
alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos.
Catullus, Carmina LXIII
As soon as Attis, borne over the deep seas in a swift boat,
had reached the Phrygian woods, with rapid eager steps,
had returned to a dark corner of the goddess’s grove,
goaded by mad fury, and there, his wits wandering
had sliced off his testicles with a sharp stone,
and had seen his remaining members devoid of power,
and that country’s soil spotted with fresh blood,
he took up the drum lightly in his pale hands,
your drum, Cybele, yours, Great Mother, in your rite,
and striking the sounding bull’s-hide with delicate fingers,
chanted to his followers, as it quivered from his assault:
‘Gallae come, rise, to the high woods of Cybele, now,
come, now, wandering cattle of Dindymus’s Lady,
like exiles wandering here on an alien shore,
followers of my way, lead by me, my friends,
you suffered the swift seas and the wild waves
and sheared your sex from your bodies with great hatred:
gladden the Lady’s spirit with swift movements.
Banish dull delay from your minds: come, now, follow,
to Phrygian Cybele’s house, the Phrygian goddess’s grove,
where the voice of the cymbal clashes, the drum echoes,
where the Phrygian flute-player plays on a curving reed,
where the ivy-crowned Maenads violently toss their heads,
where they act out the sacred rites with high-pitched howls,
where the goddess’s wandering retinue’s wont to hover,
where we should hurry with our swift triple-step.’
As Attis, the counterfeit woman, sings this to his friends,
the Bacchic choir suddenly cries with quivering tongues,
the drum echoes it gently, the hollow cymbals ring.
The swift choir comes to green Ida on hurrying feet.
Attis, leading, panting wildly, goading his scattered wits,
enters the dark grove accompanied by the drum,
like a wild heifer escaping the weight of the yoke:
The agile Gallae follow their swift-footed leader.
Then, since wearied, foodless, they reach Cybele’s grove,
they’re seized by sleep from their excessive labours.
Dull tiredness overwhelms eyes giving way to languor:
mad frenzy vanishes in the calm of gentle breath.
But when the Sun from his golden face scanned the bright
heavens with radiant eye, the harsh earth, and wild sea,
and dispelled the shadows of night with his lively steeds,
then the Grace, Pasithea, takes swift Sleep, flying
from the waking Attis, to her beating heart.
So, rapidly, from sweet dream and free of madness,
Attis recollected his actions in his thoughts,
and saw with a clear heart what and where he had been,
turning again with passionate mind to the sea.
There gazing at the wide waters with tearful eyes
he raised his voice and sadly bemoaned his homeland:
‘Land that fathered me, land that mothered me,
I, who left you so sadly, have reached the groves of Ida,
like a slave fleeing his master, so am I among
snows, and the frozen lairs of wild creatures,
and should I in madness enter one of their dens
where would I think to find you buried in those places?
The keen eye itself desires to turn itself towards you,
while my thought is free a while of the wild creatures.
Have I been brought from my distant home for this grove?
Shall I lose country, possessions, friends, kin?
Shall I lose forum, wrestling ring, stadium and gymnasium?
Sorrow on sorrow, again and again complaint in the heart.
What form have I not been, what have I not performed?
I a woman, I a young man, a youth, a boy,
I the flower of the athletes, the glory of the wrestling ring:
my doorway frequented, my threshold warm,
my house was garlanded with wreaths of flowers,
at the dawn separation from my bed.
Now am I brought here priest and slave of divine Cybele?
I, to be Maenad : a part of myself: a sterile man?
I to worship on green Ida in a place cloaked in frozen snow?
I to live my life beneath the high summits of Phrygia,
where deer haunt the woods, where the wild boar roams?
Now I grieve for what I did, now I repent.’
As the swift sounds leave his rosy lips
the fresh words reach the twin ears of the goddess,
as Cybele is loosing the lions from their yoke
and goading the left-hand beast: she spoke to it,
saying: ‘Go now, be fierce, so you make him mad, so he
is forced to return to the grove by the pain of his madness,
he who desires to escape my rule so freely.
Let your tail wound your back, let the lashes show,
make the whole place echo to your bellowing roar,
shake your red mane fiercely over your taut neck.’
So Cybele spoke in threat and loosed the leash.
The wild beast urging itself to speed, roused in spirit,
tore away, roared, broke madly through the thickets.
and when it reached the wet margin of the white sands,
and saw delicate Attis near to the ocean waves,
it charged. He fled demented to the wild wood:
there to be ever enslaved, for the rest of his life.
Goddess, Great Goddess, Cybele, Lady of Dindymus,
Mistress, let all your anger be far from my house:
make others aroused, make other men raving mad.
English translation by A. S. Kline 2007 www.poetryintranslation.com
Most of the elements were therefore already present for Mayrhofer to construct his own distinctive version. He seems to have wanted to create deliberate uncertainty about the order of the events. By fusing two occasions on which Attis looked out longingly over the ocean, two separate occasions on which he was approached by Cybele on her lion-drawn carriage, and two occasions when he fled to a wooded hillside, the poet was able to evoke the tension within Attis himself, reflecting the differences between his experience while in frenzy or ecstasy (‘rasen’) and his waking, conscious state.
Attis seems always to have suffered from contradictory sensations and yearnings. In Mayrhofer’s version, he tells us that before he first encountered Cybele his life was wilted or faded, and he contrasts this image with the idea that when serving the goddess his life had ripened into a striped golden and crimson fruit (some sort of peach?). However, this fruit is at risk of being scorched by the fire of his homesickness. Another image related to this longing for home and the past is his desperate urge to fly, to be lifted on strong wings. Yet it was just such an urge that must have led him to beg to be carried off with Cybele on her chariot in the first place. When he hears the cymbals that announce her re-appearance towards the end of the narrative he is driven to rush to the top of the mountain and soar (or simply plunge). There are no wings. He cannot fly. His ecstasies whilst serving as a priest may have given him a temporary lift, his self-castration may have given him the sense that he has cut himself loose from the desires that root him to the earth, but in the end he is trapped (this seems to be what the idea of him being stuck in the trunk of a pine tree is hinting at). ‘Kein Gott will sich hülfreich erzeigen’ / ‘No god is going to appear and offer help’. This is no classical drama; there is no deus ex machina.
We have to conclude that there is an autobiographical strand to Mayrhofer’s poem. Most of his work is driven by the theme of longing or unassuageable desire, and the corresponding conviction that there can be no resolution to human suffering in this world. Like Attis, Mayrhofer spends a great deal of time looking out at water and sighing. Indeed, it is Attis’s desire to get to the other side of the waves that leads him to jump from a great height at the end of the poem: ‘O wär’ ich jenseits der Wellen! / Oh, if only I were beyond those waves!’ We know of at least two occasions on which Mayrhofer attempted suicide by jumping into the river Danube, and his final, successful suicide attempt also involved a plunge (from his third floor office window).
What can it have been like to be so torn? Life in the paternal valley was clearly dull or controlled, so much so that the young man (Attis and Mayrhofer seem to have merged) was desperate to escape and leapt at the opportunity offered by a passing goddess. Such experiences are still common, of course. It is often those that have had the seemingly most secure of upbringings who rebel and feel the lure of extremism and the intensity of experience offered by ecstatic devotion. In Mayrhofer’s case this was connected with the beauty and truth made available by poetry and other arts, which left the ‘real world’ looking bleak and meaningless. Yet the more he entered into this world of the spirit, the more conscious he was that he was not there, that he was falling short of its ideals. Thus, homesickness is not simple nostalgia, a longing for a bliss in the past that has been lost. Nor is it simply regret for an unalterable mistake (such as self-castration). It is infinitely worse than that. It is an awareness that here is not there, that happiness will always be ‘behind the mountains’, ‘beyond the waves’.
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Further reading
James Frazer discussed the Attis myth (in connection with Adonis and Osiris, other death and resurrection figures) in The Golden Bough. Chapters 34 – 36 of the 1922 edition are available online:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough/The_Myth_and_Ritual_of_Attis
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough/Attis_as_a_God_of_Vegetation
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough/Human_Representatives_of_Attis
Milan, Archeeological Museum
Photo by Giovanni Dall’Orto, from Wikimedia Commons
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Original Spelling and Note on the Text Atys Der Knabe seufzt übers grüne Meer, Vom fernenden Ufer kam er her. Er wünscht sich mächtige Schwingen: Die sollten ihn ins heimische Land, Woran ihn ewige Sehnsucht mahnt, Im rauschenden Fluge bringen. "O Heimweh! unergründlicher Schmerz, Wie folterst du das junge Herz; Kann Liebe dich nicht verdrängen? So willst du die Frucht, die herrlich reift, Die Gold und flüssiger Purpur streift, Mit tödtlichem Feuer versengen? Ich liebe, ich rase, ich hab' sie gesehn, Die Lüfte durchschnitt sie im Sturmeswehn Auf löwengezogenem Wagen, Ich mußte flehen: o nimm mich mit! Mein Leben ist düster und abgeblüht; Wirst du meine Bitte versagen? Sie schaute mit gütigem Lächeln zurück; Nach Thracien zog uns das Löwengespann, Da dien' ich als Priester, ihr eigen. Den Rasenden kränzet ein seliges Glück: Der Aufgewachte schaudert zurück - Kein Gott will sich hülfreich erzeigen. Dort, hinter den Bergen, im scheidenden Strahl Des Abends, entschlummert mein väterlich Thal; O wär' ich jenseits der Wellen!" Seufzet der Knabe, doch Cymbelgetön Verkündet die Göttin; er stürzt von Höh'n In Gründe und waldige Stellen. There are a number of differences between the text that Schubert set to music and the poem as published in 1824 (noted in bold below). It is impossible to know if Schubert made the change himself or if he was working from an earlier draft of the author's text. Der Knabe seufzt übers grüne Meer, Am dämmernden Ufer kam er her. Er wünscht sich mächtige Schwingen: Die sollten ihn ins heimische Land, Woran ihn ewige Sehnsucht mahnt, Im rauschenden Fluge bringen. "O Heimweh! unergründlicher Schmerz, Was folterst du das junge Herz; Kann Liebe dich nicht verdrängen? Du willst die Frucht, die herrlich reift, Die Gold und flüssiger Purpur streift, Mit tödtlichem Feuer versengen? Ich liebe und rase, ich hab' sie gesehn, Die Lüfte durchschnitt sie im Sturmeswehn Auf löwengezogenem Wagen, Ich mußte flehen: o nimm mich mit! Mein Leben ist düster und abgeblüht; Wirst du meine Bitte versagen? Sie schaute mit gütigem Lächeln mich an; Nach Thracien trug uns das Löwengespann, Da dien' ich als Priester, ihr eigen. Den Rasenden kränzet ein seliges Glück: Der Aufgewachte schaudert zurück - Kein Gott will sich hülfreich erzeigen. Dort, hinter Gebirgen, im scheidenden Strahl Des Abends, entschlummert mein väterlich Thal; O wär' ich jenseits der Wellen!" So seufzet der Knabe, doch Cymbelgetön Verkündet die Göttin; er stürzt von Höh'n In Gründe und waldige Stellen.
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Gedichte von Johann Mayrhofer. Wien. Bey Friedrich Volke. 1824, pages 156-157.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 156 [170 von 212] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ177450902