Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/79

 last word of a dying epoch. These three great poets utter the swan song of the moribund Republic. Their beliefs are sceptical, or frankly materialistic; they shut their eyes at the prospect of death to open them on the nearer charms of the sensual life: devoting their days and their genius to the pleasures of a passionately voluptuous love of women. In their higher moods they turn to the Past, but with an antiquarian interest only, like Ovid and Propertius, or, like Tibullus, to delight in the religious customs that still linger in the rural parts of Italy, the relics of a simpler and devouter time. If they turn their thoughts to the Afterworld at all, it is to depict in glowing verses the conventional charms of the classic Elysium, or to find occasion for striking description in the fabled woes of Ixion and Tantalus. Even these descriptions change by a natural gradation into an appeal for more passionate devotion on the part of Corinna, or Delia, or Cynthia. If Propertius thinks of death, it is but to hope that Cynthia will show her regard for his memory by visiting his tomb in her old age; to regret, with infinite pathos, the thousands of "dear dead women" who have become the prey of the Infernal Deities—''sunt apud infernos tot milia formosarum''; to lament that his deserted mistress will call in vain upon his scattered