"What can atone, my fair, for crimes like these? I'll bear with patience, use me as you please. Yet, by Love's shafts, and by your braided hair, By all the joys we stole, your suppliant spare. When sickness dimmed of late your radiant eyes, My restless, fond petitions won the skies. Thrice I with sulphur purified you round, And thrice the rite, with songs, the enchantress bound; The cake, by me thrice sprinkled, put to flight The death-denouncing phantoms of the night; And I nine times, in linen garbs arrayed, In silent night, nine times to Trivia prayed. What did I not? Yet what reward have I? You love another, your preserver fly." The Romans most firmly believed that there was efficacy in odd numbers. In the seventh elegy, the poet complains that he has been caught in his own trap; for Delia is practising upon himself those arts by which he has taught her to deceive her husband. Then he appeals to her husband to assist him in watching her and keeping her from others. This appears to be a rather bold step; but, considering the class to which Delia belonged, it is likely that her intimacy with Tibullus was no news to her spouse. The address to him is nothing more than a most exquisite piece of persiflage. From this time on, however, we hear no more of Delia. The poet now turns to Nemesis, with whom he is no more fortunate. Besides being fickle, she is avaricious; from which fault Tibullus tries to save her, possibly not altogether without a thought of the limitation of his own means. "The girl who is good-natured and not avaricious, though she live a hundred years, shall be wept for before the blazing pyre; and some aged man, revering the memory of his old love, shall yearly deck her reared tomb with flowers, and say as he leaves it: 'Rest well and placidly, and light be the earth above thy quiet bones!'" The third book of elegies is dedicated to Neæra. On the first of March, it was customary for the Roman women to expect presents from their husbands and lovers. Tibullus was betrothed to Neaera, and was confronted with the question as to what he should send her for a New Year's gift. The Muses inform him that the lovely are won with song; hence he determines to send her a book of his own poems. It was made of the finest paper; and upon the cover--which was yellow, the color sacred to marriage--the recipient's name was beautifully inscribed, with the dedication: _Your husband that will be, chaste Neæra, sends you this little gift and begs you to accept it_. To what degree Neæra prized the volume is not known; but Tibullus was no more fortunate with her than he had been with the others. In a dream it is revealed to him that: "She who is celebrated in thy songs, the beautiful Neæra, prefers to be the bride of another." "Ah, cruel sex! woman, faithless name!" exclaims the poet; and then: "But she may be won yet; their minds are changeable."