Tibullus, Elegies 2.1 and 2.2

Rūra canō rūrisque deōs: "I sing of the countryside and the country gods." Through the genre of love elegy, Tibullus praises his ideal existence: a rustic, simple life in the country. A humble religious festival is the setting for Elegy 2.1, while Elegy 2.2 offers birthday well-wishes to the poet's friend Cornutus. Tibullus writes in elegant, straightforward elegiac couplets that make his poetry quite accessible for intermediate students.

This reader includes several appendices, including:

• A translation of the next poem in Book 2, in which Tibullus ties together the rural themes with more conventional tropes of Roman elegy
• Poems influenced by Tibullus from the pastoral traditions of England and Ireland
• A poem on similar themes from twelfth-century China, including a character-by-character gloss

 

See the about page for more information about this series based on the IB companion texts.

I am releasing this reader under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, meaning that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format with attribution and for non-commercial purposes. Find out more about this license here.

Full version ✅ Facing vocabulary on each page ✅ A glossary of common words found in the passage ✅ Notes on linguistic, literary, historical, and cultural details ✅ Questions for comprehension, literary analysis, and discussion ✅ Appendices for additional reading	Macrons	No Macrons
No-vocab version (recommended for IB*) ❌ Facing vocabulary on each page ❌ A glossary of common words found in the passage ✅ Notes on linguistic, literary, historical, and cultural details ✅ Questions for comprehension, literary analysis, and discussion ✅ Appendices for additional reading	Macrons	No Macrons
No-vocab, no-notes version ❌ Facing vocabulary on each page ❌ A glossary of common words found in the passage ❌ Notes on linguistic, literary, historical, and cultural details ✅ Questions for comprehension, literary analysis, and discussion ✅ Appendices for additional reading	Macrons	No Macrons
Notebook version Contains just the extract, with no vocabulary, notes, questions, or appendices.	Macrons	No Macrons