Elegy For Tibullus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDBBECCCFBBGHIBBJK BBLMCBNOBCPQGCBBHNBB CCRBBBCNJBSCQTQLBLCU CCCVWBRB B| If Memnon's mother mourned Achilles's mother mourned | A |
| and our sad fates can touch great goddesses | B |
| then weep and loose your hair in grief you never earned | C |
| Elegy now ah too much like your name | D |
| That bard whose work was yours who gave you fame Tibullus | B |
| burns on the mounded pyre a lifeless corpse | B |
| See Venus's boy bearing his quiver upside down | E |
| his bow is broken and his torch is quenched | C |
| look how he goes dejected his wings trail on the ground | C |
| he smites his naked breast with violent hand | C |
| his tears dampen the curls that fall around his neck | F |
| and heaving sobs keep breaking on his lips | B |
| Just so he went out fair Iulus from your house | B |
| they say at his brother Aeneas's funeral | G |
| No less was Venus stunned by her Tibullus's death | H |
| than when the fierce boar smote her lover's thigh | I |
| They say we bards are sacred favorites of the gods | B |
| and even that there's something holy in us | B |
| but that churl Death defiles every sacred thing | J |
| his shadowy hand appropriates us all | K |
| Was Orpheus saved by his father and mother who were gods | B |
| or by his songs that tamed the astonished beasts | B |
| They say that that same father sang 'Linos Ai Linos ' | L |
| deep in the woods on his reluctant lyre | M |
| And Homer too from whom as from an endless fount | C |
| bards' lips are moistened with the Muses' waters | B |
| one last day pulled him under Avernus's murky wave | N |
| his songs alone escaped the greedy pyre | O |
| The work of bards endures Troy's famous sufferings | B |
| and the endless shroud undone by nightly fraud | C |
| So Nemesis and Delia both their names will live | P |
| the one his first the one his latest love | Q |
| But what use now your rites What use the Egyptian rattle | G |
| What use to have slept alone in an empty bed | C |
| When harsh fate steals away the good forgive my words | B |
| I almost want to believe there are no gods | B |
| Live virtuous you will die Respect the gods grim Death | H |
| will drag you from their altars to your grave | N |
| Write glorious verse and see here Tibullus lies | B |
| one small urn holds the dust of what he was | B |
| Is it you the blazing pyre bears off O sacred bard | C |
| not dreading to be fed upon your breast | C |
| Flames that dare so great a blasphemy would burn | R |
| the golden temples of the blessed gods | B |
| She turned aside her gaze who rules Mt Eryx's heights | B |
| and some say she could not restrain her tears | B |
| And yet it's better thus than if Phaeacia's land | C |
| had strewn mere dirt on your neglected grave | N |
| Here as you fled life your mother closed your streaming | J |
| eyes and brought her last gifts to your ashes | B |
| Here your sister joined your mother in her grief | S |
| and came with loosened hair all disarrayed | C |
| And with their kisses Nemesis and your first love | Q |
| joined theirs and did not leave your pyre forsaken | T |
| and Delia as she left said 'Happier far your love | Q |
| for me you lived while I was still your flame ' | L |
| 'Why ' Nemesis replied 'do you grieve for my loss | B |
| Dying he clutched me with his failing hand ' | L |
| If anything remains of us but name and shade | C |
| Elysium's vale will be Tibullus's home | U |
| and you will greet him learned Catullus ivy bound | C |
| on your young brow with Calvus at your side | C |
| and you if it is false that you betrayed your friend | C |
| Gallus careless of your blood and soul | V |
| These shades will be your comrades if any shades there are | W |
| you have joined the blessed elegant Tibullus | B |
| May your bones find repose within their sheltering urn | R |
| and may earth not lie heavy on your ashes | B |
| - | |
| translated from the Latin by Jon Corelis | B |
Ovid
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