Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/165

Rh to indulge in perfumes from the banks of the Syrian Orontes. Her poet perhaps may have had a doubt whether these adornments were all for his single sake, and this may have given a point to the praises of simplicity and beauty unadorned, which in several elegies gem his poetry. Thus in El. ii., B. I.:—

It is indeed hardly to be wondered that poetry of so didactic a strain had slight influence upon a lady of Cynthia's proclivities. "Whilst there were others, if Propertius failed her, who, if they could not dower her with song or elegy, had purse-strings to relax at her bidding, when

and were fain to win her smiles by lavish presents from the fancy-ware shops of that frequented lounge,