Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/172

160

On the whole, the round of topics of which Propertius avails himself for the poetic service of his lady-love is extensive enough to furnish the most assiduous lover's vade-mecum. He has songs for her going out and coming in. He has serenades for her door at Rome, which remind us of the famous Irish lover; he has soliloquies on her cruelty, addressed to the winds, and woods, and forest-birds; he has appeals from a sick-bed, and the near prospect of death, out of which he anon recovers, and proposes, after the manner of lovers in all time—

And there is one elegy in which he descends to threats of suicide, and another where he gives directions for his funeral, and prescribes the style and wording of his epitaph:—