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It does not become directly obvious why after this happy prospect the poet goes off at a tangent to another and less inviting portion of the after-world, the abode of the guilty in Tartarus, where Tisiphone shakes her snaky tresses, and Ixion, Tityos, Tantalus, and the daughters of Danaus atone their treasons against Juno, Jove, and Venus. But the clue to the riddle is a little jealousy on the poet's part. He undisguisedly suggests that with these "convicts undergoing sentence" is the best place for a certain lover of Delia's, who took an undue interest in Tibullus's foreign service, and wished in his heart that it might be of long duration (iii. 21, 22). Too polite and too affectionate to hint that such ought to be her destination also, if untrue to her vows to himself, the poet adroitly bids her fence about her chastity with the company of her trusty duenna or nurse, to tell her stories, and beguile the hours of lamplight with the distaff and the thread. Taking heart from this pretty picture, which his fancy has wrought upon a pattern of Lucretian precedent, not out of date it would seem in good Roman houses, though it might be imagina-