Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/38

26 Egnatius, and Ravidus with sarcasms, innuendos, and threats of biting iambics, if they forestalled his privileged visits. He may have trusted also somewhat to the gratitude he might quicken in Lesbia's bosom by such compliments by contrast as the skit he wrote on the mistress of Mamurra of Formiæ, a creature of Julius Cæsar, who had raised him in Gaul from a low station, and put him in the way of acquiring wealth for the simple purpose of squandering it. Its tenor is a mock compliment to a provincial belle of features nowise so perfect and well matched as they might be. And the suggestion that this is she about whom the province raves, leads up to what Catullus deems the ne plus ultra of absurdity:—

Lesbia, however, most probably felt her hold on her poet to be sufficiently tenable for her taste or purpose, and, wanton-like, shrank not from trespassing on a love which, however sensual, might have been counted as stanch for the period. And so she doubtless trespassed upon it, and outraged him by some more than common heartlessness; for such must have been the provocation for his touching verses to "Lesbia False," which open a new phase in the history of this attachment, and discover a depth of pathos and tenderness in the contemplation of eternal separation, which in the brief sunshine of her favour he had had