Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/139

Rh The custom of leaping through the fire, under the notion of being purified by the smoke, is alluded to by Propertius likewise; and is said by Mr Keightley to be still kept up in parts of Ireland and Scotland. The seemingly disrespectful liberty taken by the child with his father's ears, is explained by the peculiar and playful kiss, given by a person to another whose ears he held by way of handles, which Greeks and Romans occasionally practised, and which was called by the latter chutra. As to the old tree at the village centre, the cross-roads, or district boundary, it belongs to all time, and was the natural trysting-place for the festival of Pales, as many an ancient oak or elm discharges a like office, or designates a like tryst, in our English counties.

The scrupulousness with which Tibullus kept these rural festivals, observed his dues to Ceres, Silvanus, and the Lares, and set up a Priapus in his orchard, accommodated against stress of weather by a shady grot, might or might not be taken as an argument that two elegies in the third and fourth books, alluding to the Matronalia, were from his muse, and not another's. One so wrapt up in the country may have done all, when he had discharged his duties to the deities presiding over it; or, on the other hand, one who made so much of birthdays and anniversaries, might have made a point of including among his special feasts the first day of the first month (March) of the sacerdotal year, the festival Matronalia in honour of Juno, the goddess of married women, a season when not only husbands but lovers were wont to present their loves