Turning again in Tibullus 1.5

Abstract

Tibullus 1.5 has been much studied to date. Perhaps one of the best known studies treats the elegy as an example of Tibullus' style, a smooth surface with an underlying texture of cross referencing and emotional stresses. Scholars have seen in the elegy, or based interpretation of it upon: 1) the [... ] in general, or 2) a specially developed form of the [ ... ], or 3) a statement of pessimism vs. guarded optimism with a remarkable, "oracular" close, or 4) a skillfully developed interplay of the idea of capture and slavery. Magic has been seen as a key component of the poem.1 It has been proposed that the top of 3-4 is the main figure that governs the changing array of scenes from beginning to end because the top with its turning is emblematic of change. Whatever has been seen as the main idea or image of the elegy, scholars have also given considerable attention to the structure, and identified, although with various refinements, a set of approximately seven units of thought, or scenes, in the composition of the elegy. The aim of this essay is to look again at the next to last of these topics, the elegy's expression of turning motion descriptive of change, in particular the change or vicissitude of love as a focus for Tibullus. For many commentators have observed that there is much change or turning around of things for the lover, and that this change pervades the poem. One noted that the poem has to do with the extension of the general rule of change in life to love in particular, another remarked on the turning around of many words and situations through the elegy, another pointed out the change of the role of slave between Delia and Tibullus, another the multiple transformation ofTibullus' self-image, and yet another saw change as the whirl in which Tibullus is caught up because he is under Delia's spell and unable to control