49. Lyaeo] This was a name of Bacchus derived from a Greek word meaning to relax. It here, as commonly elsewhere, means wine, of which Bacchus was the god.

53. sint ficta licebit] Although they be false.' The usual form is licet,' 'let it be granted that it is so.' But the poets use the future tense sometimes. Licet' therefore is not a conjunction, but a verb; and after licet' the subjunctive is used without ut.'

6

56. Lucifer admisso] He prays that Lucifer, the morning star (p. 11, v. 72 n.), may bring that day with all speed, with galloping horses. The ancients commonly represented the heavenly bodies as riding on chariots (p. 10, v. 28). The poets often use the singular for the plural, and the plural for the singular, when it suits their purpose. The singular is used here perhaps because 'admissis has an awkward sound.

On the Death of Tibullus.-P. 5.

Albius Tibullus was a Roman poet who wrote chiefly in elegiac verse. He died while he was young, about 20 B.C. He was a friend of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace.

1. Memnona si mater] Memnon was an Ethiopian prince, nephew of Priam, whom he assisted in the Trojan war. He was killed by Achilles. His mother was Eos, or, as the Romans called her, Aurora, the goddess of morning. Ovid relates elsewhere (Metam. xiii. 621) how she wept bitterly for her son, and her tears were turned into dew. Achilles was king of the Myrmidones, a people of Thessaly, and the principal warrior of the Grecian army in the Trojan war. He was killed by Paris son of Priam. His mother was Thetis, a sea goddess.

3. Elegeïa] Elegiac verse (consisting of hexameters and pentameters) was employed much upon laments and sad subjects, and its name was generally supposed to be taken from Greek words expressing the cry of mourners. Therefore he says that the name given to Elegy, whom he addresses as the muse who presides over that sort of verse, will henceforth prove to be too justly derived, and bids her loose her hair in token of grief, because her chief poet is dead. 'Indignos' means 'innocent,' unworthy of such sorrow. See p. 10, v. 18.

5. tui vates operis] The poet of thy work,' that is, the poet who sets forth her work, which is elegy. Tua fama,'' thy fame,' Is he who gets fame for thee.

6. rogo] The most ancient practice at Rome in respect to the dead was to bury them without burning. Afterwards burning became more general. The ashes were put into an urn and

buried. The wooden pile on which the body was burnt was called 'pyra' or 'rogus.

6. Ecce puer Veneris] Cupido the son of Venus and god of love. Tibullus wrote love-poetry, and so Cupido is supposed to attend his funeral, with his quiver reversed (just as our soldiers reverse their muskets at funerals), his bow broken, and his torch unlit; his wings droop, and he beats his breast; his hair hangs loose and is wet with his tears, while he sobs loudly. Cupido is commonly represented with a bow and quiver and a lighted torch, representing the fire of love. See p. 26, 40.

13. Fratris in Aeneae] Aeneas was one of the leaders of the Trojans who escaped from Troy after it was taken by the Greeks. and went to Italy. His son Iulus went with him. He was supposed to be the son of Venus, and so Cupido was his brother. The common story is, that Aeneas did not die, but was carried to heaven alive. Ovid follows a different legend here, and speaks of Cupido following in Aeneas' funeral procession from the house of his son Iulus, which would be at Lavinium in Latium, where Aeneas landed.

16. juvenis] This youth's name was Adonis, who was much beloved by Venus. The story is, that he was killed by a boar when hunting, and Venus was inconsolable at his death.

17. At sacri vates] He says poets are called sacred, and supposed to be under the care of the gods, and even by some to have divine power themselves,- and yet Tibullus is dead, he means to say.

18. Sunt qui] There are those who think,' some think.. These words are often used together, and they take the subjunctive mood after them when no particular persons are referred to, and the indicative when particular persons are meant.

19. Scilicet] This is compounded of 'scire licet,' 'you may know.' It means surely.' Importuna' means 'cruel.'

21. Ismario] It has been said before (p. 1, v. 7) that Ismariu means Thracian, and that Orpheus was a poet of Thrace (p 4. 32). He was supposed to be the son of Oeagrus king of Thrace and Calliope one of the Muses, but neither royal father nor goddess mother could keep him from death, nor his music, with which he could move forests and tame wild beasts. He is said to have been torn to pieces by the women at the orgies of Bacchus.

23. Aelinon] This is a Greek word signifying a 'lament.' Orpheus' father is here said to have sung a lament for him in the woods, to the accompaniment of his harp, which Ovid calls invita,' reluctant,' that is, unwilling to make music through sorrow for Orpheus.

25. Maeoniden] Homer, who is so called from Maeonia, an ancient name for Lydia in Asia Minor. Homer was supposed by some to have been born at Smyrna, the chief town of Lydi

Ovid says that all poets drink from Homer as from a perpetual fountain. Pierian waters' is a phrase for poetry; Pieria, a tract of country between Macedonia and Thessaly, being the fabled land of the Muses.

27. Averno] Avernus was the name given by the ancients (and still retained) to a lake in Campania in Italy. Its waters, which were very deep, sent forth noxious vapours, from the lake being formed in the crater of a volcano. For this reason it was supposed to be one of the ways down to the lower regions. Therefore Ovid says the last day, or the day of death, has sunk Homer below the dark waters of Avernus. Only his poems (he says) have escaped the funeral pile.

29. Durat opus vatum] He says the fame of the Trojan war, which is the theme (literally work) of poets, lasts, that is in their poems. There were many other Greek poets besides Homer who wrote about the Trojan war, but their poems are not extant. They were called Cyclic poets because their poems professed to fill up the cycle or round of events connected with the Trojan war and left untold by Homer.

30. tela retexta] Penelope the wife of Ulysses, during her husband's absence at the siege of Troy and ten years' wandering afterwards, was beset by many suitors, and in order to get rid of them she declared she could not make up her mind to marry again till she had finished a robe she was weaving. To put off the time further she undid by night what she had woven by day. For this reason the deception she practised is called 'nocturnus dolus.'

31. Nemesis, Delia] These were mistresses of Tibullus mentioned in his poems. Cura' and 'amor' have the same meaning

here.

34. Sistra] Ovid asks of what use their piety and their chastity had been to Nemesis and Delia. They had been wont to sacrifice to Isis, an Egyptian goddess, who was also worshipped at Rome. In her worship it was usual to shake instruments called 'sistra' (from a Greek word to shake), such as the Egyptians used. The Latin name is 'crepitaculum,' ‘a rattle.' Ovid here imitates four lines of Tibullus (i. 3. 23 sqq.).

37. Vive pius] Live pious, yet though pious thou shalt die; attend to sacred rites, yet while doing so death shall drag thee from the temple to the tomb.' 'Bustum' is properly the place where the body has been burnt; but it is used for the tomb, which is properly sepulcrum.' It contains the same root as 'uro, ussi, ustum.'

39. jacet ecce] Jacere' is used before in the sense of lying dead' (p. 2, v. 20). It is not commonly so used. Ecce' is properly the imperative mood of a verb 'ecco,' which is not found in use, but is connected with 'oculus,' 'the eye.'

40. urna] See note on v. 6.

44. sustinuere] 'Had the heart for quae' refers to the flames of the funeral pile (flammae rogales).

45. Erycis] Eryx was a mountain in the western part of Sicily, now called Monte S. Giuliano. On the top of it Venus had a famous temple, from which she was called Erycina. She is said to have turned away her face from the sight of Tibullus' death. Arces' may be rendered 'heights,' or something of that sort. It properly means defences (from a Greek root), and so the commonest meaning of 'arx' is a citadel, but it is often applied to hills.

46. Sunt quoque qui] See above, v. 18.

47. Phaeacia tellus] This is a name given by the poets to the island of Corcyra (Corfu). Tibullus, accompanying a military expedition to the East, was taken ill at Corcyra, and obliged to come back to Rome, where he soon died. Ovid says this was better than if he had died and been buried as a stranger (ignotum) in Corcyra, whose soil he calls vile, because the Phaeacians, whom later poets identified with the Corcyreans, were described by Homer as a people chiefly given to eating and drinking.

49. Hinc] Hine' means from this place,' or 'in this quarter.' Here it means the latter, at Rome.

50. ultima dona] It was usual for the mourners to throw flowers and locks of hair upon the body as it was burning (p. 1. 5). 51. in partem doloris] To share her sorrow.'

52. inornatas dilaniata comas] The perfect participles of passive verbs are often used like deponent participles, and they must be translated accordingly; not as if 'secundum' were understood, as the common explanation is: 'having torn her neglected hair.'

53. priorque] That is, Delia, who was his first love. See

v. 32.

56. ignis]While I was your flame,' as we also say for one that is loved. She says his love for her was happier than his love for Nemesis, because then he lived, now he has died.

57. dolori] 'Let my loss be thy sorrow.', The Romans used the dative, as a grief to thee,' where we should say 'thy grief.' For this dative may be substituted 'pro' with the ablative, or 'in loco' with the genitive ('for' or ' in the place of"). The nominative or accusative may be used. But the dative softens the phrase. 'Sunt reliquis documentum' is, 'they are a lesson to the rest.' Still, by way of brevity, the dative is often translated precisely as the accusative or nominative would have been, i. e. without "as." 59. e nobis] Of us,' that is, of mortals. 'Nomen et umbra,' 'a name and a shadow,' that is, things without life or reality. 'Umbra' here must not be confounded with 'corporis umbra' below, v. 65.

60. Elysia valle] See p. 2, v. 49 .

62. docte Catulle] Catullus and Calvus were poets who were

P. 7, 8.]

PROCESSION AT THE FESTIVAL OF JUNO.

65

born about the same year, 84 B.C. They died about the same time, when Tibullus was a child. They were not forty years of age. The word 'juvenis' was applied to men of middle age, therefore Ovid speaks of Catullus' 'juvenilia tempora,' manly temples.' The ivy was used for the poets' crown, particularly the lyric poets, and Catullus wrote lyric poetry as well as other kinds. He was learned in the Greek language, and imitated the Greek poets. Therefore he is called 'doctus.' Ovid says he and Calvus will come forward to meet their brother poet when he goes down to the shades below.

64. Tu quoque] He says Gallus also will meet Tibullus. He was a distinguished poet. He was also high in favour with Augustus; but for some offence against his patron, the nature of which is not known, he was banished from Rome, and in his grief he destroyed himself. Ovid says if the charge of having wronged his friend was false, he was too prodigal of his blood and life.

65. si qua est modo corporis umbra] 'If only there be any shadow of the body.' The ancients believed that the spirits of the departed lived in unsubstantial bodies, which the Romans called umbrae' or 'imagines,' that is, the shadows or images of the true bodies. But many educated Romans of Ovid's time affected to disbelieve a future existence, as Ovid throws doubts upon it here.

Description of a Procession at the Festival of Juno at Falerii (not Veii, as it is in the text by mistake).

1. Faliscis] Falerii was a town of Etruria, about thirty miles north of Rome. The inhabitants were called Falisci, and here Ovid calls the town by that name. It had a small territory about it which was cultivated with gardens and rich in pasture. Ovid was married three times. His first two wives he divorced. The third, who was born at Falerii, was named Perilla. To her he was as much attached as a sensualist could be, and lived with her many years, till his exile. See p. 10, v. 17.

2. Camille] Furius Camillus was a Roman general and several times dictator. In the year B.C. 394 he reduced the town of Falerii, the inhabitants of which were at war with Rome.

6

3. Casta] Here this means 'holy.' 'Celebris' means 'crowded,' having the same root as the word 'creber,' frequent,' 'close together.' 'Indigenam bovem' is a calf bred in the place,' and fatted for the yearly sacrifice (see v. 14). Falerii was particularly celebrated for the worship and a temple of Juno.

5. Grande morae pretium]' Delay will be largely recompensed by the knowledge of those rites.'

6. praebet] Quamvis' in the prose writers of Ovid's time