Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/131

Rh It is of no use for poets to rail against luxury and the fashionable temptations to female extravagance in Coan robes and Red Sea pearls; no use to set "the girl who gives to song what gold could never buy" over against her whose principle is to sell herself to the highest bidder. Nemesis is not the sort of mistress to be wrought upon by the "less or more" of posthumous regrets, and so Tibullus resigns himself to sacrifices which his instinct tells him she will appreciate. If her cry of "Give, give" demands it, he protests—

After this protestation, addressed to such as Nemesis, it was simply a poetical surplusage to profess to be ready to drink any number of love-potions; and it is satisfactory to be able to think that even the sacrifice of his patrimony came to no more than the figure of speech that it was. Nemesis is incidentally mentioned in the complimentary "Elegy to M. Valerius Messalinus," of which mention has been made already, and of which the date was about 20, in terms that bespeak her influence over the poet's mind and muse, and imply that if he is to live to celebrate in verse the family of Messala, it will be through happy relations with her, his latest love. A year after—the year before that of his death—another elegy (vi. B. ii.) represents him bent on following his friend and brother poet, Macer, to the wars, by way of escaping Nemesis's caprices. Till now he has allowed hope of better treatment to sustain him, and even now he lays the