The Elegies of Tibullus

The Elegies of Tibullus (Being
The Consolations Of A Roman
Lover Done In English Verse)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Elegies of Tibullus, by Tibullus
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: The Elegies of Tibullus
Author: Tibullus
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9610] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 9,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ELEGIES OF TIBULLUS ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, David Garcia and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

THE ELEGIES OF TIBULLUS
BEING
THE CONSOLATIONS OF A ROMAN LOVER
DONE IN ENGLISH VERSE
BY THEODORE C. WILLIAMS

1908

TO WILLIAM COE COLLAR HEAD MASTER OF THE ROXBURY
LATIN SCHOOL
Our old master ever young to his old boys:
_Did Mentor with his mantle thee invest, Or Chiron lend thee his
persuasive lyre, Or Socrates, of pedagogues the best, Teach thee the
harp-strings of a youth's desire?_

PREFACE
Albius Tibullus was a Roman gentleman, whose father fought on
Pompey's side. The precise dates of his birth and death are in doubt,
and what we know of his life is all in his own poems; except that
Horace condoles with him about Glycera, and Apuleius says Delia's
real name was Plautia.
Horace paid him this immortal compliment: (_Epist. 4 bk. I_).
"_Albi nostrorum sermonum candide judex, Non tu corpus eras sine

pectore; Di tibi formam, Di tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi_."
After his death, Ovid wrote him a fine elegy (p. 115); and Domitius
Marsus a neat epigram. The former promised him an immortality equal
to Homer's; the latter sent him to Elysium at Virgil's side. These
excessive eulogies are the more remarkable in that Tibullus stood,
proudly or indolently, aloof from the court. He never flatters Augustus
nor mentions his name. He scoffs at riches, glory and war, wanting
nothing but to triumph as a lover. Ovid dares to group him with the
laurelled shades of Catullus and Gallus, of whom the former had
lampooned the divine Julius and the latter had been exiled by Augustus.
But in spite of this contemporary _succes d'estime_, Tibullus is clearly
a minor poet. He expresses only one aspect of his time. His few themes
are oft-repeated and in monotonous rhythms. He sings of nothing
greater than his own lost loves. Yet of Delia, Nemesis and Neaera, we
learn only that all were fair, faithless and venal. For a man whose ideal
of love was life-long fidelity, he was tragically unsuccessful.
If this were all, his verse would have perished with that of Macer and
Gallus. But it is not all. These love-poems of a private gentleman of the
Augustan time, show a delicacy of sentiment almost modern. Of the
ribald curses which Catullus hurls after his departing Lesbia, there is
nothing. He throws the blame on others: and if, just to frighten, he
describes the wretched old age of the girls who never were faithful, it is
with a playful tone and hoping such bad luck will never befall any
sweet-heart of his. This delicacy and tenderness, with the playful accent,
are, perhaps, Tibullus' distinctive charm.
His popularity in 18th century France was very great. The current
English version, Grainger's (1755) with its cheap verse and
common-place gallantries, is a stupid echo of the French feeling for
Tibullus as an erotic poet. Much better is the witty prose version by the
elder Mirabeau, done during the Terror, in the prison at Vincennes, and
published after his release, with a ravishing portrait of "Sophie,"
surrounded by Cupids and billing doves. One of the old Parisian editors
dared to say:
"_Tons ceux qui aiment, ou qui ont jamais aime, savent par coeur ce
delicieux Tibulle_."
But it was unjust to classify Tibullus merely as an erotic poet. The
gallants of the ancien regime were quite capable of writing their own

valentines. Tibullus was popular as a sort of