Elegies

ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs #41

by Tibullus, A.M. Juster (Translator), Robert Maltby (Introduction)

Tibullus is one of the three great Roman elegists. In this volume, the award-winning poet A.M. Juster provides a faithful and stylish new translation of his major work, with parallel Latin text. The Introduction considers Tibullus' poems in the context of classical elegy and in particular the elegies of his contemporaries, Ovid and Propertius, and discusses the influence of his patron Messalla in the reign of Augustus. Finally, Maltby's comprehensive notes explain topical, literary, and mythological allusions and identify major themes.
About the Series For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Ancient History, Roman, Ancient

129 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 26

About the author

Albius Tibullus (c. 55 BC – 19 BC) was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins.

Tibullus's chief friend and patron was Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, himself an orator and poet as well as a statesman and a commander. Messalla, like Gaius Maecenas, was at the centre of a literary circle in Rome. This circle had no relationship with the court, and the name of Augustus is found nowhere in the writings of Tibullus. About 30 BC Messalla was dispatched by Augustus to Gaul to quell a rising in Aquitania and restore order in the country, and Tibullus may have been in his retinue. On a later occasion, probably in 28, he would have accompanied his friend who had been sent on a mission to the East, but he fell sick and had to stay behind in Corcyra. Tibullus had no liking for war, and though his life seems to have been divided between Rome and his country estate, his own preferences were wholly for the country life.

The loss of Tibullus's landed property is attested by himself (i. I, 19 seq.), "Felicis quondam, nunc pauperis agri" ("Fields of one once prosperous, now impoverished" ;cf. 41, 42). Its cause is only an inference, though a very probable one. That he was allowed to retain a portion of his estate with the family mansion is clear from ii. 4, 53. Tibullus may have been Messalla's contubernalis in the Aquitanian War (Vita Tib. and Tib. i. 7, 9 seq., a poem composed for Messalla's triumph), and may have received militaria dona (Vita Tib.).

Tibullus died prematurely, probably in 19,[1] and almost immediately after Virgil. His death made a deep impression in Rome, as we learn from his contemporary, Domitius Marsus, and from the elegy in which Ovid (Amores, iii. 9) enshrined the memory of his predecessor.

Reviews

[Yann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ne va pas te laisser rebuter par un premier refus; peu à peu le cou rebelle cédera au joug: longueur de temps rend les lions dociles à l'homme, longueur de temps fait doucement miner la pierre par l'eau; l'année, sur les coteaux exposés au soleil, mûrit les raisins, l'année ramène périodiquement les astres brillants. Et ne crains pas de faire des serments, les parjures de Vénus se dispersent au vent.

Tibulle est un poète romain des premiers siècles avant et après Jésus-Christ. Ces Élégies sont réparties en quatre livres: elles parlent d'amour heureuses ou malheureuses, font l'apologie de la paix, haïssent la guerre. Il a été lui-même enrôlé dans des expéditions en Gaule et en Syrie, et ces expériences ont plutôt tourné son ambition vers une vie rustique et paisible, rejetant au loin la gloire et l'avidité. Son imagination irénique se tourne vers un âge d'or, cet âge d'or dont parlent Hésiode et tous les poètes.

Ses affaires de cœur ne tournent pas toujours aussi heureusement qu'il l'aurait souhaité. Il se plaint de l'avidité de ses maîtresses, toujours à la recherche de cadeaux, et qui ne mettent pas à assez haut prix ses vers. Mais ses chagrins ne tournent jamais jusqu'au dépit acrimonieux et agressif de Catulle: Tibulle est un vrai cœur d'artichaut qui se console bien vite d'une déconvenue en changeant l'objet de sa vénération. Un formidable document pour l'histoire des mœurs et des mentalités.

[Cécile de Rousiers · Rating 5 out of 5]

O Tibulle, carmina tua mihi perplacuerunt ! Optimus non es, nam Ovidius quoque scripsit, sed secundum locum tibi do ❤️

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love them; lose them; curse them. I enjoy the pastoral disdain for war and gold.

[Gastjäle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important wellspring of powerful amatory tropes, such as love-cum-warfare and lovers-under-divine-aegis. What Tibullus does particularly well is to describe the painful side of love, and how, despite all the thundering oaths cast into the wind, Cupid beats his little pawns back into submission before you can say "Messala".

[Ophilia Adler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it for a summer course about Roman love poems. I really liked some of his poems. More romantic and less erotic.

[Santiago González · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime, me encantaron, deseando cuando tenga mejor latín leerlas en su idioma original.

El libro III con las de Sulpicia y Lígdamo me gustaron menos, tenía expectativas con Sulpicia pero no me parece que llegue al nivel de Tibulo.

[Ron Roelandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

[Edoardo Rubino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non so come, non so perché, ma, tra tutte le opere che ho letto della classicità greca e latina, per qualche motivo le Elegie di Tibullo sono l’opera a me più cara. Ha davvero ragione Quintiliano a definirlo tersus atque elegans: la sensibilità del mondo dei campi si manifesta in tutta la sua pace sotto il cielo terso del meriggio, all’ombra di una donna.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

re-read this for *uni* to get a handle on some of tibullus' works (i'll be translating a few poems after spring break when we get back to class).
i actually enjoyed tibullus far more than i thought i would, and, surprisingly, more than i enjoyed propertius when i read him. i don't know what it was, but there was something that really grabbed me about the beautiful descriptions, as well as the typical paraclausithyron coming up in almost every poem (genuinely had a little chuckle to myself every time a locked door was mentioned). i think i'd thought he'd be dull because i'd been given that impression by people i know (ty seva), but he really wasn't. it makes me sad that people love ovid and propertius so much more when our ancient sources tell us that tibullus was thought of as the best out of the three. please read him because it'll make me really happy.

[Casandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my Lyric Poetry of Greece and Rome class at University.

4.0 stars

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tibullus is a Latin elegist who I was unfamiliar with. I started reading this after his name came up in Goethe's poetry (and somewhere else, but I can't remember where.) He is roughly contemporaneous with two other elegists: Propertius and Ovid. I've not read any Propertius. I have read some Ovid. These poems at times also reminded me of Virgil's 'Georgics' or Theocritus's 'Idylls' in the way some of them are so imbedded in farms and farming or the rural in general.

They're are sixteen elegies in total. 10 in Book One and 6 in Book 2. It's not a lot. Those in Book One are mostly addressed to Delia, a Mistress. Although there are two addressed to a boy, Marathus. I suspect the line between gay and straight in Ancient Rome was a tad blurrier than it became later. Those in Book 2 are addressed to Nemesis, another Mistress. It might just be me but a women called Nemesis is surely a red flag.

It's interesting the way Book 2's Tibullus seems more desperate and more needy that Book 1's. He abandons a lot of his beliefs from book one - the ideal rural life, the importance of family Gods and tradition etc - in the face of his need for Nemesis. Who, it seems, is a bit of a gold digger (as is Marathus.) Tibullus complains much of being outbid for affection by wealthier men and wishing ill on Nemesis and Marathus (and their wealthy men) for taking gifts over love. Indeed, some of those rants have an echo of Juvenal's satires. Or Kanye West's 'Gold Digger'.

This edition, translated by A M Juster, and with notes and introduction by Robert Malty has parallel texts so if you want to test your Latin again Juster's you are more than welcome. My Latin, which was pretty rubbish to start with is beyond this. But there is something reassuring about a parallel translation.

I enjoyed it. It wasn't mind blowing but considering Tibullus had an influence into the 18th century (and possibly beyond) I'm glad I read them. I'm also reaching a mildly smug point that when I don't need to look at every note. Gradually all this reading of Virgil and Ovid and etc etc starts feeding into the next book on the list. All books are one big book. That's my theory. Now, I'm off to listen to Gold Digger.

[MxMorganic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tibullus’ poetry can be a little hard to wrap your head around, because even with ample notes, which are always helpful, it cannot be denied that the poet wrote in a very different time, culture, and place than the modern reader could possibly relate to. However, the emotions which he depicts in his poetry are, at times, remarkably similar to those we might feel today when we are heartbroken or lovesick. Moreover, AM Juster, the translator of this edition, is not only a talented translator, but a talented English poet, and so this collection in particular is a delightful way to read Tibullus. It even includes Latin for those interested in the original text. Accordingly, I recommend this volume very highly!

[Orest Mercator · Rating 3 out of 5]

For better or for worse, I find myself often struggling to connect with the literature of Greek and Roman antiquity. Perhaps the fault is a lack of knowledge sufficient to connect me to that world (though I think I am decently versed in the era for a layperson). Perhaps I cannot suspend my experience and live in a world where the text's innovations have long been adapted and deployed by millennia of writers of varying quality. Perhaps it's just not my cup of tea. And perhaps such books as these give more intellectual than visceral pleasure. I think that maybe all of these reasons hold some water. Whatever the explanation, though, my overall thought is that this book was somewhat interesting to read, sporadically rewarding, good to have read, but also totally skippable.

I'm in no position to judge the translation -- or for that matter to hold forth on the differences between Latin and English as poetic media. I do suspect that poets writing in Latin, a heavily cased language lacking in word order requirements, probably derive great effect from the arrangement of words, something which a translator working in English cannot replicate. Latin is also quite pregnant, saying in a words what requires many in English. Yet it is also not as rich as English in it's lexicon. As a result, I often find Latin poetry to come off as a bit stilted and workaday. Verses such as "Fixed constellations guide the swaying boats that search / for profit through the waters ruled by wind" can feel a bit like mad-libs.

As a side note, frequent references to the pantheon, encountered for the first time since I embarked on graduate study of religion, became a pet interest in reading this book. I think that Roman (/Greek) gods have become somewhat secularized for us -- in that we (or I at least) often associate them more with a kind of folkloric culture, a founding mythos, than with the protestant-inflected conception of religion that has predominated in the West since the Enlightenment. W.C. Smith's "The Meaning and End of Religion" has great discussions of what religion meant throughout the eras of Rome, but the gist is that this protestant idea of religion does not map onto their conceptions very well (shocker). Anyway, I enjoyed thinking about such things when reading, but on the whole I was very underwhelmed by Tibullus and his Elegies, but maybe that's just my shortcoming. Whatever the case, three stars for adequacy.

[Denmicke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trots bokens lilla format så blev dessa elegier lite enformiga i längden. Men bra nog.

[Liva · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something about poetry written in BCE that hits differently

[Ruby-Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

weird lad idk what's going on

[Marina · Rating 3 out of 5]

He going from giving Marato advices to tell him to prostitute himself was quite funny ngl

[James Carrigy · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

A good collection of Elegy.

[Judy Akel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite line: Book 1, Elegy 8, Lines 57-58:

"I know love's secret lore—how breath is softly drawn
and how a kiss is stolen silently..."

[Myrthe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was het niet altijd eens met de vertaling maar toch goed gedaan.

[Gilbert Wesley Purdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The "familiar sheets," from the swatch of Juster's translation above, are something of an anachronism meant to invoke a comparable feeling in the modern reader's mind. He uses such tropes sparingly and with excellent judgment throughout. Elsewhere, in Juster, Tibullus imagines a "For Sale" sign in front of his house such as did not exist at the time. In the original Latin the sign is an auction notice. He imagines his lover picking a door lock with a hairpin while such locks at the time were much too large to pick. In the case of the "familiar sheets," they are part anachronism, part best guess. In the original, Tibullus is referring either to pillows or mattress ticking. Juster chooses ticking and lightens it up to give the modern reader a recognizable contemporary equivalent for the poet's sense of simple luxury. Bed sheets, as we presently know them, did not yet exist in the western world.' Juster's name needs to be added to the book details here as translator. I can't imagine why it has been left off. More from my review of A. M. Juster's Elegies of Tibullus is available here at Eclectica Magazine

[Marcos Augusto · Rating 4 out of 5]

For idyllic simplicity, grace, tenderness, and exquisiteness of feeling and expression, Tibullus stands alone among the Roman elegists. In many of his poems, a symmetry of composition can be discerned, though they are never forced into any fixed or inelastic scheme. His clear and unaffected style, which made him a great favourite among Roman readers, is far more polished than that of his rival Propertius and far less loaded with Alexandrian learning, but in range of imagination and in richness and variety of poetical treatment, Propertius is the superior. In his handling of metre, Tibullus is likewise smooth and musical.

[Kate]

This dude basically writes about the same thing over and over again (THE LADIES, so cray. why won't they just RUSTICATE with him?? btw, after reading this, I think I pretty much know why).

From the intro:
"Sometimes a minor poet, just by reason of his aloofness from the social trend of his time, may also escape its limitations, and sound some notes which remain forever, true to what is unchanging in the human heart."

OKAY

[Giuseppe D'Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Struggente.

[Maria]

Llibre III: elegies de Lígdam