In a masterly study of the language and motifs of Theocritus’ Thalysia, Dr. G. Giangrande has demonstrated that what the poem relates is the mock-investiture of Simichidas, the naïve young townsman and littérateur, performed with almost malicious irony by the goatherd Lycidas, who sees through, and ridicules, Simichidas’ rustic and poetic pretensions.1 My object in this paper is to examine, in the light of Giangrande's findings, some aspects of the presentation of Lycidas; this examination will, I believe, enable us to (...) bring the poem into still sharper focus. (shrink)

This article examines Ovid Amores 3.9, the elegy on the death of Tibullus, and especially its allusions to Tibullus' own poetry and its pervasive use of religious vocabulary and imagery. It focuses on the phrase obscuras... manus, the transmitted reading in line 20, and reveals a significant allusion to Callimachus, ep. 2 Pf. (also on the death of a friend and fellow-poet). Current interpretations of obscuras are considered and found inadequate to the context and tenor of the poem; the very (...) slight change of only two letters is proposed to yield the adjective obscenas, a highly charged word with religious associations. (shrink)