Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/126

114 Tibullus when next we meet them in the sixth elegy; for now a year more has flown, and the poet is changing his tactics, and twitting the present possessor of Delia's affections with her inconsistency, of which no one has had more experience. She is now apparently married to her rich admirer; but Tibullus has no idea of letting him have an easy pillow—if, indeed, the elegy is meant for his perusal, and not rather as banter for the fickle mistress who has given the poet up. The tone, in either case, is not such as to present the poet in a pleasant or natural light, when he mockingly, and in a style reminding us of Ovid in his 'Art of Love,' enumerates his own past devices to gain access to Delia, and to foil her guards and duennas, and quotes his experience as worth buying, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief. As, however, in such loves, it would be quite out of course to know one's own mind, it is not a surprise to find the poet, in another poem of the same year, evidently clinging to the hope of a reconciliation, even after what should have seemed an unpardonable affront and insult; and striving to ingratiate himself with Delia by favourable mention of her mother—"a golden old woman," because she has always looked kindly on his addresses—who, he hopes, may live many years, and with whom he would be quite content to go halves in the residue of years yet in store for him—though not, we conclude, in the sense of spending them with her. At any rate, he goes the length of saying that he shall always love her, and her daughter for her sake, though he would be glad if she could teach that daughter to behave herself.