We have been introduced in recent years to the various strands out of which the opulent tapestry of 4.7 is woven; indeed, ‘epic, tragedy, the mime, the epigram have all been turned to account’. Remarkable as this may be, it should give little cause for surprise; we now have a better understanding of the debt of Roman elegy to various generic sources. The real challenge 4.7 poses for the reader is the interaction within its compass of different styles and tonal levels. Opinions generally converge in the process of identifying the poem's ingredients and diverge when it comes to assessing its overall tone. It is rather ironical that the lush Bildungserlebnis in this poem should have failed to warn against the fabrication of further Urerlebnis-items: if 3.24 and 25 dismiss Cynthia, as they profess to do, the hatchet must have been buried somewhere between those poems and 4.7; Cynthia died after reconciliation and was summarily consigned to her grave to re-emerge from it as a chiding apparition on the night following her obsequies.