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!'"