The Elegies of Tibullus | Page 2

Latin Rousseau. He
satirized rank, riches and glory as corrupting man's primitive simplicity.
He pled for a return to nature, to country-side, thatched cottages,
ploughed fields, flocks, harvests, vintages and rustic holidays. He made
this plea, not with an armoury of Greek learning, such as cumber Virgil
and Horace, but with an original passion. He cannot speak of the
jewelled Roman coquettes without a sigh for those happy times when
Phoebus himself tended cattle and lived on curds and whey, all for the
love of a king's daughter.
For our own generation Tibullus has another claim to notice. All
Augustan writers express their dread and weariness of war. But
Tibullus protests as a survivor of the lost cause. He has been, himself, a
soldier-lover maddened by separation. As an heir of the old order, he
saw how vulgar and mercenary was this parvenu imperial glory, won at
the expense of lost liberties and broken hearts. War, he says, is only the
strife of robbers. Its motive is the spoils. It happens because beautiful
women want emeralds, Indian slaves and glimmering silk from Cos.
Therefore, of course, we fight. But if Neaera and her kind would eat
acorns, as of old, we could burn the navies and build cities without
walls.
He was indeed a minor poet. He does not carry forward, like Virgil, the
whole heritage from the Greeks, or rise like him to idealizing the
master-passion of his own age, that vision of a cosmopolitan
world-state, centred at Rome and based upon eternal decrees of Fate
and Jove. But neither was he duped, as Virgil was, into mistaking the
blood-bought empire of the Caesars for the return of Saturn's reign.
Sometimes a minor poet, just by reason of his aloofness from the social
trend of his time, may also escape its limitations, and sound some notes
which remain forever true to what is unchanging in the human heart. I
believe Tibullus has done so.
This translation has been done in the play-time of many busy years. I
have used what few helps I could find, especially the Mirabeau, above
alluded to. The text is often doubtful. But in so rambling a writer it has
not seemed to me that the laborious transpositions of later German
editors were important. I have rejected as probably spurious all of the
fourth book but two short pieces. While I agree with those who find the
third book doubtful, I have included it.

But from scholars I must ask indulgence. I have translated with latitude,
considering whole phrases rather than single words. But I have always
been faithful to the thought and spirit of the original, except in the few
passages where euphemism was required. If the reader who has no
Latin, gets a pleasing impression of Tibullus, that is what I have chiefly
hoped to do. In my forth-coming translations of the Aeneid I have kept
stricter watch upon verbal accuracy, as is due to an author better-known
and more to be revered.
THEODORE C. WILLIAMS. New York, 1905.

CONTENTS
Preface
BOOK I
I. The Simple Life II. Love and Witchcraft III. Sickness and Absence
IV. The Art of Conquest V. Country-Life with Delia VI. A Lover's
Curses VII. A Desperate Expedient VIII. Messala IX. To Pholoe and
Marathus X. To Venal Beauty XI. War is a Crime
BOOK II
I. A Rustic Holiday II. A Birthday Wish III. My Lady Rusticates IV.
On His Lady's Avarice V. The Priesthood of Apollo VI. Let Lovers All
Enlist VII. A Voice from the Tomb [Transcriber's Note: Elegy VII
listed in Contents, but not in text.]
BOOK III
I. The New-Year's Gift II. He Died for Love III. Riches are Useless IV.
A Dream from Phoebus V. To Friends at the Baths VI. A Fare-Well
Toast
BOOK IV
XIII. A Lover's Oath
_Ovid's Lament for Tibullus' Death_

BOOK I

ELEGY THE FIRST
THE SIMPLE LIFE
Give, if thou wilt, for gold a life of toil! Let endless acres claim thy
care! While sounds of war thy fearful slumbers spoil, And far-off

trumpets scare!
To me my poverty brings tranquil hours; My lowly hearth-stone
cheerly shines; My modest garden bears me fruit and flowers, And
plenteous native wines.
I set my tender vines with timely skill, Or pluck large apples from the
bough; Or goad my lazy steers to work my will, Or guide my own rude
plough.
Full tenderly upon my breast I bear A lamb or small kid gone astray;
And yearly worship with my swains prepare, The shepherd's ancient
way.
I love those rude shrines in a lonely field Where rustic faith the god
reveres, Or flower-crowned cross-road mile-stones, half concealed By
gifts of travellers.
Whatever fruit the kindly seasons show, Due tribute to our gods I pour;
O'er Ceres' brows the