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estate, endeared to him by old family memories and associations, and, though much reduced from its ancient dimensions, yet sufficient to give him all the really desirable advantages of life.

He is first introduced to us as living in his country-house, where he had lived happily as a child (i. 10. 15)—

Sed patrii servate lares: aluistis et idem

Cursarem vestros cum tener ante pedes

and where his ancestors had lived from immemorial times; and contemplating with strong reluctance and some natural fears the prospect of his first campaign. That was probably in the year 30 or 29 B.C., when he shared the tent and served on the staff of Messalla, in his Aquitanian campaign. He is said to have gained 'orders of distinction,' 'militaria dona,' by his services; and he gained the more solid advantage of the permanent friendship of his chief. In the poem referred to above, probably his earliest, though he indicates his susceptibility to love, he hints at no definite attachment rendering him more reluctant to incur the dangers of the expedition, as his attachment to Delia a year or two later makes him reluctant to accompany Messalla again on his mission to the East.

Probably in the winter following his return from the Aquitanian campaign he became the lover of Plania, who, under the name of Delia, is the heroine of his first book of Elegies. Her position is ambiguous. He speaks of her as if she were a married woman, whose husband was absent as a soldier in Cilicia, but he says also that she did not wear the 'head-dress' or the 'long robe' characteristic of a Roman matron; and in a later poem he speaks of a 'lena' who was the agent of her later intrigues 1. Probably she was united to her vir by some of the less binding relations which did not entitle her to wear the 'vitta.' She is a more shadowy personage than the Cynthia of Propertius, but

1 Haec nocuere mihi quod adest huic dives amator :
Venit in exitium callida lena meum (i. 5. 47).

He proceeds to denounce the 'lena' in terms that recall, though there is no touch of humour in them, Horace's denunciations of Canidia.

there can be no doubt that in the first three Elegies of the book we are reading a genuine story of mutual love, probably the first deep affection of both their lives. Five poems only, out of the ten composing the first book, are devoted to the love of Delia. The second appears to be the earliest in date, and is in the form of a Tаракλavσíbνрov, a complaint uttered before her closed door. It is evidently written in Rome, and in the winter succeeding the Aquitanian campaign—

Non mihi pigra nocent hibernae frigora noctis,

Non mihi cum multa decidit imber aqua

but while still in Rome, he longs to be in the country with Delia, tending his flocks on the familiar hill:

Ipse boves mea si tecum modo Delia possim

Iungere, et in solito pascere monte pecus.

In the first Elegy the love of his home is as prominent a motive as the love of Delia. It is written to excuse himself to Messalla for not again accompanying him on foreign service. He urges that he has no need nor wish to enrich himself, and that he cannot tear himself from the 'formosae vincla puellae.' The line Et sedeo duras ianitor ante fores

and the lines

Nunc levis est tractanda Venus, dum frangere postes

Non pudet et rixas inseruisse iuvat,

indicate, what we should not have supposed from the thoroughly idyllic character of the first half of the poem, that it was probably written in the city, though under the influence of the quieter thoughts of his country home.

The third Elegy, written later in the same year, informs us that he had started with Messalla on his mission to the East. It represents Tibullus as detained in Corcyra by a dangerous illness, from which he is still suffering or just recovering. After expressing in the two opening lines his affection for Messalla and his comrades, he devotes the rest of his poem to the longing for Delia and for his home, and to the thoughts suggested by his recent danger. None of his poems is so full of tender

beauty as this. His whole feeling is exalted and purified by absence and the prospect of death. There are few passages in ancient poetry so perfect as a picture from life and an expression of feeling as the lines in which he anticipates his unexpected and unannounced arrival before Delia, engaged with her handmaids on their evening tasks:

Tunc veniam subito nec quisquam nuntiet ante,
Sed videar caelo missus adesse tibi:
Tunc mihi, qualis eris, longos turbata capillos,
Obvia nudato, Delia, curre pede.

His return, however, did not fulfil his hopes. In the fifth poem he appears again in Rome. Delia had been dangerously ill; and Tibullus believes that he has saved her life by his prayers and ceremonial observances. He had dreamed of a happy life in which he should share with her the congenial labours of the farm. But she is no longer unsophisticated as when he parted from her. She has applied the arts of intrigue, which he reproaches himself with having taught her, and through the agency of a 'lena' has sold herself to a richer lover. In the following poem the husband has returned from the wars. Tibullus appeals to him to guard Delia from his rival. He appeals to her old mother, who had always favoured their love; he entreats Delia to be chaste, not from fear, 'sed mente fideli,' and ends with the prayer,

nos Delia amoris

Exemplum cana simus uterque fide.

If it is true that the love of Cynthia made Propertius a poet, the love of Delia inspires the happiest poetry of Tibullus. Fortunately we know this passion only in its short-lived bloom, and not, like that of Propertius, also in its decay, and through the stormy seasons preceding its decay. Though her infidelity produced its natural effect in separation, he allows no words of scorn or coldness to mar the beauty of his past.

Three other poems of this book, the fourth, the eighth, and the ninth, are of a sentimental character, of a much less pleasing sort. The subject of them is a beautiful youth, Marathus; and

they indicate at least a sympathy with that aberration of feeling which is the chief stain on ancient civilisation. It is generally assumed that these poems are later than those written in connexion with Delia. But there is no evidence for this presumption. It is as likely that they are the record of an earlier state of feeling, before his deeper nature was stirred by his love for Delia and his friendship for Messalla. The tone of these poems is less gentle and kindly than in his other elegies. They not only show little of his purer affection, but they bear no traces, or only the faintest, of his life in his country estate, or of his devotion to Messalla.

One poem, the seventh, not yet noticed, gives the worthiest expression to these feelings of devotion to his friend. It was written in honour of the birthday of Messalla, which happened to be the anniversary of his great victory on the river Atax, and celebrates at the same time the triumph awarded to him in the year 27 B. C. It recalls the memory of the campaign in which he himself had borne his part, and gives a rapid survey of the wonders of the lands which Messalla visited in the course of his Eastern mission. The tone of the whole poem is thoroughly genial, and the concluding lines bring Messalla before us, as happy in his family life, and as beneficent in the works of peace, as he had been distinguished in war.

Several years must have elapsed between the composition of the Elegies of the first and those of the second book. He seems to have been roused to write only when under the influence of some strong attachment; and his love for Nemesis, which is the principal subject of this book, belongs to the last years of his life 2. That book was left unfinished and must have been published after his death. The fifth poem certainly could not

1 Cf. especially 9. 45-76.

2 Cf. ii. 5. 109-112

iaceo cum saucius annum,

Et faveo morbo, cum iuvat ipse dolor,

Usque cano Nemesim sine qua versus mihi nullus

Verba potest iustos aut reperire pedes.

Ovid writes as if the love of Tibullus for Nemesis had endured till his death. This poem was written in 18 B. C.

have obtained the final revision of the author. This book brings him before us in the same relations as the earlier book,—as a lover, and the poet of love, as living happily on his estate, feeling a lively sympathy with the homely pursuits and joys of the country people, and with the ancient ceremonies of rural life; and as the friend of Messalla devoting his art to celebrate the entrance of Messalla's son on public duties, and led on by this new theme, to find, like the other elegiac poets, inspiration for the last effort of his genius in the ancient memories of Rome.

She

The love for Nemesis has more the nature of a 'bondage' than that for Delia. She seems to exercise over him something of the spell which Cynthia exercises over Propertius. tortures him by her infidelities, and threatens to ruin him by her rapacity. He even faces the contingency of having to part with his old home, the source of so much of his happiness and inspiration :

Quin etiam sedes iubeat si vendere avitas,

Ite sub imperium sub titulumque, Lares (ii. 4. 53).

These are the slight and simple materials out of which the texture of his poems is woven. Love is the chief inspirer and the chief motive of his poetry :

Ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero:
Ite procul Musae si nihil ista valent (ii. 4. 19).

He is as indifferent to fame as to wealth:

Non ego laudari cupio, mea Delia; tecum

Dum modo sim, quaeso segnis inersque vocer (i. 1.57–58).

If his love has less ardour than that of Propertius, it has more tenderness and self-abnegation. Virgil alone among ancient poets is capable of such feeling and such sympathy with feeling as that expressed in the line,

Non ego sum tanti ploret ut illa semel ;

and of the self-forgetfulness of

At iuvet in tota me nihil esse domo.

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