Prayer to Apollo

The opening of Tibullus' longest elegy, written for an occasion: Messalinus, son of his patron Messalla, has entered the college of the quindecimviri — the priests who kept the Sibylline books.

Novus ingreditur tua templa sacerdos — a new priest enters your temple. A poem for a professional appointment, dressed as a hymn.

And the closing wish (which falls behind the seam) is touching in its way: may your hair stay unshorn, may your sister stay chaste forever. That is, may what cannot change remain as it is. There is nothing one can wish an immortal — so Tibullus wishes him permanence, the one thing that already belongs to him.