Res Divinae #2 - Postscript

Not all anxiety in Tibullus is transferred to the realm of abnormal ritual; but where it is represented in the neutral register, it is less than serious:

Have I wronged the godhead of Venus by aught that I have said, and does my tongue now pay the penalty of sin? Can they say of me that I have wickedly invaded an abode of gods and plucked the garland from the sacred altar? Am I guilty, then I will not shrink to fall prone before her temple and to press kisses on its hallowed threshold, nor to crawl on suppliant knees along the earth and strike my head against the sacred door-posts. (1.2.79-86)

This self-effacement comes in a poet addressed to the (fictional?) lover Delia, who is spurning Tibullus. We see once more how, typical of the tone of elegy, perfectly acceptable ideas - that profaning holy things provokes divine punishment, which can be averted by submissively begging for forgiveness - are employed with an irreverent air (Tibullus is not really in doubt about whether he has robbed a temple!) but without subverting the ideas themselves.