Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/175

Rh Yet even into this quiet picture creeps the alloy of jealousy. The poet concludes his brief idyll with a note of misgiving:—

Without professing to note the stages of Propertius's cooling process—a process bound to begin sooner or later with such flames as that which Cynthia inspired—we cannot but foresee it in his blushing to be the slave of a coquette, in his twitting her with her age and wrinkles, nay, even in the bitterness with which he reminds her that one of her lovers, Panthus, has broken loose from her toils, and commenced a lasting bond with a lawful wife. According to Mr Cranstoun's calculation, the attachment between Propertius and Cynthia began in the summer of 30, and lasted, with one or more serious interruptions, for five years. The first book which he dignified with her name, was published in the middle of 28. The others, and among them the fourth, which records the decline of the poet's affections, were left unfinished at his death. In the last two elegies of the fourth book, it is simply painful to read the bitter palinodes