DIOMEDES, p. 484, 17 K Elegia est carmen compositum hexametro versu pentametroque alternis in vicem positis, ut divitias alius fulvo sibi congerat auro et teneat culti iugera multa soli. quod genus carminis praecipue scripserunt apud Romanos Propertius et Tibullus et Gallus imitati Graecos Callimachum et Euphoriona. elegia autem dicta sive Tapà τὸ εὖ λεγειν τοὺς τεθνεῶτας : fere enim defunctorum laudes hoc carmine comprehendebantur: sive arò Toû êxéov id est miseratione, quod Opývovs Graeci vel èλeeîa isto metro scriptitaverunt. cui opinioni consentire videtur Horatius, cum ad Albium Tibullum elegiarum auctorem scribens ab ea quam diximus miseratione elegos miserabiles dicit hoc modo: decantes elegos. neu miserabiles SIDONIVS APOLLINARIS, Carm. 9, 259 non Marsus, Pedo, Silius, Tibullus, Epist. 2, 10, 6 Certe si praeter rem oratoriam contubernio feminarum poeticum ingenium et oris tui limam frequentium studiorum cotibus expolitam quereris obtundi, reminiscere quod saepe versum Corinna cum suo Nasone complevit, Lesbia cum Catullo, Caesennia cum Gaetulico, Argentaria cum Lucano, Cynthia cum Propertio, Delia cum Tibullo. NOTES I, I THIS poem is the first of the elegies to Delia, and also serves as an introduction to the book. The date is uncertain. On the form, etc., see Introd. P. 93. This elegy has been much discussed. See the literature cited by Schanz (cp. p. 30, n. above). Since then (1911) Jacoby's theories have called out two important articles: J. J. Hartmann, De Tibullo Poeta,' Mnemosyne, 39 (1911), pp. 369–411; R. Reitzenstein, Hermes, 47 (1912), 80-116. Pohlenz ('Xápires, Friedrich Leo,' etc. Berlin, 1911, p. 104) thinks Tibullus may have been influenced here by the Thalysia of Theokritos. He opposes, very properly, Jacoby's assertion that our poet was imitating Hor. Epode 2. Imitated by La Harpe, Lebrun, Loyson, Parny, Blacklock; cp. too Baïf's Du Contentement. Luigi Alamanni, Felicità dell' Amore: Età dell' oro, echoes this elegy, 1-28 and 1, 3, 35 ff. 6 Chi desia d' acquistar terreno ed oro, Sia pur le notti e i giorni al caldo e al gelo Bertin, A Eucharis,' Amours, 1, 12, was also evidently inspired by some passages in this poem and 1, 2, 65-74. The following lines of Nicholas Grimald (1519-1562), Oxford Book of Verse, 42, might well be a summary of our elegy Let some for honour hunt, and hoard the massy gold: 'Others are welcome to gold and lands if the toil and the peril of campaigning are to be the price. Give me my modest competence, a life inglorious and a cheerful home, the simple toil and the simple faith of the country-side. My ancestral wealth is no more, but I am at peace, I observe the proper rites, and such as I have I share with the old rustic gods. Nay, I care not for the broad acres of my sires. A small crop is enough, it is enough to rest in my own bed. How pleasant then with one's beloved to hear the cruel winds outside, to drop away unconcerned to slumber, lulled by the pelting storm! This lot be mine. Let him be rich-he deserves it- who can face the frowning skies and the madness of the seas. Perish rather all the wealth of Ind than that any girl should weep because I had taken to a soldier's life. For you, Messalla, it is meet to wage war by land and sea and to hang your house with trophies. I am chained at home a helpless thrall of love. But I care not, dear Delia, for the praise of men. So long as I am with you they are welcome to say I am without energy and without ambition. May we be together till death comes to part us, and may you follow my body with many tears to the grave. Until then let us love while we may. Death comes anon, anon palsied eld. Now is the time for lightsome love and for all the mad pranks of thoughtless youth. In these wars I am good either to lead or to follow. Be off then, ye alarums of war, bring wounds to greed, aye bring riches too. With my little store I do not dread want and I do not desire wealth.' 1-52. The quiet life and idyllic simplicity. The favourite motive of Tibullus (cp. esp. I, 10), and constantly recurring in antique literature, esp. during and after the Alexandrian Age. See note on the Golden Age, 1, 3, 35-48; Hor. Epode, 2; Verg. G. 2, 493 ff.; Columella, Praefat. 7; Seneca, Poetae Lat. Minores, IV, p. 74 B.; Mart. 10, 47; Propert. 1, 6; 3, 3, 41. 1-2. For the wish cp. 1, 10, 29 ff., for the conventional division of wealth, 2, 2, 13-16; Hor. Sat. 1, 2, 13, 'dives agris, dives positis in faenore nummis,' etc. The lines are imitated by Ovid, Amor. 3, 15, 12; Fast. 3, 192; Pont. 4, 9, 86; Mart. 1, 85, 2; 116, 2; 6, 16, 2; perhaps Claud. In Ruf. 2, 134. 1. fulvo: poetic; cp. the 'red gold' of our older literature, e.g. ‘Of red golde shone their weedes,' or, 'here's a red rogue to buy thee handkerchers.' The prose word is flavus, Mart. 12, 65, 6, ‘an de moneta Caesaris decem flavos,' 'ten yellow boys,' etc. auro: ablat. instr., cp. opibus, 1, 7, 59. So the ablat. is instr. with vivere in 25; decidere, 1, 2, 30; perrepere and tundere, 1, 2, 85–86; fieri, 4, 6, 14 and note; traducere, 1, 5 below and note; aperta, 1, 6, 18; ridere, 1, 9, 54; crepitare, 2, 5, 81; exstruere, 2, 5, 99; vetare, 2, 6, 36, etc. 2. culti . . . soli: hence of course more valuable. There is no reference here to the confiscations (Introd. p. 32). Indeed, Ullman, 'Horace and Tibullus,' A.J.P. 33, 160, shows that the losses to which the poet indirectly refers were probably due to something more serious and personal than confiscations. He suggests, in short, that the Albius whom Horace mentions as having a mania for the collection of bronzes (Sat. 1, 4, 28) – hunc capit argenti splendor; stupet Albius aere, was the father of Tibullus. If so, the shrinkage in the family fortune is amply explained as well as the fact that Tibullus never refers to the cause of it. Moreover, the fact that Horace confines his illustrations to people who have passed away (Sat. 2, 1, 39) suggests that at the time this Satire was written, i.e. as early as 39 B.C., the elder Albius was already dead. This would help to explain why Tibullus never refers to him. At that time the son would be not over fifteen or sixteen years of age, and we may well agree with Ullman that Horace (Sat. 1, 4, 109) — Nonne vides Albi ut male vivat filius, describes the condition of our poet at that time. If this is true, such expressions as I, 1, 38–41; 1, 10, 8; 1, 10, 17–20; 2, 3, 47-48 have an added significance and pathos; and indeed, the fact that he had such a father and that he lost even him when he was a mere boy may partly account for his later melancholia. Finally, who shall say how far our poet's characteristic genius and taste were due to the fact that he had just such a father and that his home life from earliest childhood was intimately associated with the contemplation of artistic masterpieces ? - For the arrangement of adj. and subst. see Introd. p. 104. For the thought cp. 2, 3, 41-42. 3-4. A favourite motive in antique poetry: Bacchyl. frag. 4, 12, Blass, χαλκεᾶν δ ̓ οὐκ ἔστι σαλπίγγων κτύπος, ͵ οὐδὲ συλᾶται μελίφρων | ὕπνος ἀπὸ βλεφάρων, | ἀῶιος ὃς θάλπει κέαρ: Plutarch, Nik. 9, τοὺς ἐν εἰρήνῃ καθεύδοντας οὐ σάλπιγγες, ἀλλ ̓ ἀλεκτρυόνες ἀφυπνίζουσι· Lucan, 4, 394, non proelia fessosulla vocant, certos non rumpunt classica somnos'; Sil. Ital. 15, 48, 'haud umquam trepidos abrumpet bucina somnos'; Propert. 3, 3, 41; Hor. Epod. 2, 5 (with Keller's note), etc. 3. labor (Tóvos): regularly used in both poetry and prose of the hardships of campaigning, such as foraging, digging trenches, fortifying camps, etc. Tacitus, Ann. 1, 65, gives a graphic description. — vicino terreat hoste: Ovid writes from Tomi, Pont. 4, 9, 81, 'quaere loci faciem Scythicique incommoda caeli, et quam vicino terrear hoste roga.' So Percennius in Pannonia says to his fellow-soldiers (Tac. Ann. 1, 17), 'non obtrectari a se urbanas excubias: sibi tamen apud horridas gentes e contuberniis hostem aspici.' -hoste: for the ablat. cp. capite, 1, 72; acervo, 1, 77; metu, 1, 6, 75; causa, 1, 7, 23; triumphis, 2, 1, 33; timore, 2, 1, 77; donis, 2, 3, 52; comis, 4, 2, 10.- -terreat and fugent are consecutive subjunctives. 4. somnos: the use of plural for singular, characteristic of poetry but by no means confined to it, was largely extended by the Augustan writers and is especially common in Ovid. Examples of it are more common in the first book of Tibullus than in the second. They are encouraged, sometimes necessitated, by the exigencies of metre, but they generally have a rhetorical |