Propertius Books I-II
Although they worked in the same genre, it would be difficult to imagine two poets more markedly different in style and personality than Tibullus and Propertius. One could almost define Propertius’s style as the opposite of Tibullus’s. Where Tibullus is smooth, straightforward, harmonious, and ultimately somewhat detached, Propertius is prolix, allusive, discordant, and passionately involved: his verse conveys a sense of great tension under great control. These are the same qualities which characterize the work of many modern poets, such as Propertius’s admirer Ezra Pound, and it is not surprising that Propertius is by far the most popular of the Roman elegists in our own century. Sextus Propertius was born about 50 b.c at Assisi. He tells us himself (in poems not included in this collection) that his family, though not noble, was a distinguished one, that their estates were diminished by the confiscations of the Civil Wars, that he lost his father early, and that another of his relatives fell fighting against Augustus’s forces. Propertius was probably in his twenties when he published his first book of elegies, which became a popular success and won him the patronage of Maecenas. Certain ancient evidence allows us to say that he died between 16 and 2 b.c Propertius is unlike all the other elegists, and indeed unlike all other ancient and most modern love poets, in that the personality of his beloved makes as powerful an impression on us as does the personality of the poet himself. We know Cynthia. When she greets his late return to her bed with nagging accusations that he is a wastrel, a Lothario, and a beast, when she sniffily dismisses the Iliad’s value as literature because Helen is oversexed, or when, returning from a jaunt with one of her other lovers, she finds Propertius being unfaithful to her and responds by beating up his two new girlfriends, his valet, and Propertius himself, we may be shocked, but we are not surprised. We feel, “That’s just like her.” Yet Cynthia is still attractive, perhaps even most attractive, when she is being thus difficult. In the energy and spirit which animate everything she does, she is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, “whom everything becomes: to chide, to laugh, to weep; whose every passion strives to make itself . . . fair and admired.” And Antony’s wondering exclamation as he embraces her could almost have come from Propertius’s lips:
Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arc of the rang’d empire fall! Here is my space. Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike feeds beast as man; the nobleness of life is to do thus, when such a mutual pair and such a twain can do it.
Propertius as he presents himself in his poetry is Cynthia’s perfect match and foil. Melancholy where she is cheerful, languid where she is full of energy, anxious where she is brisk and confident, he sometimes seems to be playing the stereotypical feminine rather than masculine role in their relationship. Yet Propertius and Cynthia are one in their capacity to yield totally to passion, their love of elegance, and their unbridled and unashamed sensuality. Particularly noteworthy in Propertius’s character is his obsession with death, which seems extreme even for a poet. He never tires of envisioning his funeral and wondering how Cynthia will react to it. For him, death was evidently as deep a source of inspiration as sex: many of his most powerful poems are on this theme.
Propertius I.1
Cynthia was the first to take me with her eyes, when I was yet untainted with desire. Then Love brought down my gaze of stubborn pride, and made me bow my head down, treading me underfoot, until I learned from him to shun reluctant girls (O wicked god!) and lead a reckless life. And now for one whole year this fury has not ebbed: I still am forced to have the gods as foes. Not shirking any labor, Tullus, Milanion quelled Atalanta’s wild unbending heart. 10 He roamed distracted through Parthenium’s rocky dells and went to face the shaggy beasts of prey; and even suffered the wound dealt by Hylaeus’s club and groaned in agony ‘midst the Arcadian crags. And therefore he could tame that swiftly-running girl: so strong are prayers and valiant deeds in love. For me, dull Love neglects to practice his sly schemes, forgets to move in his accustomed ways. But, ye that have the knack of luring down the moon and make dark offerings on your mystic hearths, 20 come then! transform my mistress’s mind, and make her turn even more pallid than my face is now. Then I might believe your claims that you can change the course of stars and rivers with your Cytaean charms. And you, my friends, who warn a man already ruined, go seek out remedies for a stricken heart. Bravely I will bear cruel fire and the blade, if only I may speak what wrath impels. Take me to earth’s far ends, and take me over the seas, where never any woman shall know my way! 30 Stay here, you to whose prayers the god bows easily; be always safe in love that is returned. For me, my lady Venus inflicts unhappy nights and ever-restless Love knows no repose. I warn you, shun this plague; to each one let his own be dear; change not your love’s familiar home; but if someone too late heeds my advice, then ah! with how much grief he will recall my words!
Note to Propertius I.1 Propertius’s first book of elegies was devoted almost entirely to Cynthia, whose name stands as the first word of its first poem. The view of love as a madness or disease is common in ancient literature, but it has rarely been stated with such passionate intensity as in this piece.
Propertius I.3
Like the weary Cnossian maid that lay on the desolate shore while Theseus’s sail faded far in the distance away; like Cepheus’s daughter, when first she gave herself to sleep, Andromeda, freed at last from her flinty crag; like some exhausted Maenad, fallen from the endless dance to collapse on the grassy bank of Apidanus’s stream, so Cynthia seemed to me to breathe out quiet repose, her head reclining on her random hands, when heavy with wine I had trudged homeward my weary way, and the slaves whirled their torches in dead of night; 10 and I -- for not yet wholly had wine bereft me of wits -- stole up to her, hovering gently by the bed; and although possessed by the double flame of Love and Wine, those two inexorable gods, commanding me to venture a careful embrace as she lay there, and take my fill of dangerous kisses, stroking her with my hand, yet I lacked the daring to spoil my mistress’s peaceful rest, dreading her all too familiar bitter reproaches; but I kept on standing there rooted and stared with unwavering eyes, like Argus gazing at Io’s dismaying horns; 20 and now I loosened the festive garland from off my forehead and laid it gently, Cynthia, over your brow, and again I rejoiced in smoothing your all disarrayed coiffure, and stealthily offered you apples from cradling hands, and lavished every gift in vain on ingrate sleep (they often rolled to the floor from your curving breast), and when you sometimes stirred and heaved an infrequent sigh I gaped in foolish amazement at the sign, fearing what alien terrors you met while wandering in sleep, what man compelled you to be unwillingly his? 30 But then at last the moon, as it poured through the opposite window (the late-lingering moon with its dying light) roused open her sleep-sealed eyes with the gentle touch of its beams, and rising on elbow in her soft couch, she spoke: “So! at last another’s scorn restores you to my bed, after she threw you out and slammed the door! For where have you spent the long hours of night, that should have been mine, -- to come here now, worn out, when the stars are fading? O if only you had to endure such nights as you always inflict on me, cruel man, unhappy girl that I am! 40 Just now I was trying to stave off sleep with my crimson embroidery, or again, when I wearied, with tunes on the Orphic lyre, and the while I made low complaint (to myself, since I was deserted) of your long and frequent delays in another’s arms; till sleep came on with the pleasant blur of his wings, and I drowsed: that was my last worry among my tears!”
Note to Propertius I.3 This piece presents a typical episode in the poet’s stormy relationship with his mistress and in passing tells us quite a bit about the latter: that she was beautiful (lines 1-4) but quick-tempered and possessed of a sharp tongue (line 18), outspoken and cynical (lines 35ff.), and skilled in both domestic and artistic pursuits (lines 41-42).
Propertius I.7
While you take Cadmean Thebes, Ponticus, for your song, and the grim spears of brothers bent on war, and, upon my soul, you rival Homer the supreme (if only Fate be kindly to your verse), I, as usual, have only one theme: Love; and I seek relief from a mistress’s cruelty. Rather than my talent, I must serve my grief, bewailing the harsh days that now are mine. In this my life is spent; here is my reputation; from this I wish to have a poet’s fame. 10 My only pride is that I pleased a learned girl, Ponticus, and bore her many unfair threats. Let future lovers scorned zealously study me, and may they profit, learning of my woes. You also, if the boy should smite you with his bow, ah! how you will regret you scorned our gods! Then you will weep that those seven armies, those battlefields, lie far away in endless mute neglect; and you will strive in vain to mold a gentle poem, but Love so long delayed will yield no songs. 20 Then you will stand in awe of me as no mean poet; then I will be preferred to all Rome’s talents; and young men at my grave will cry out, overcome, “Great poet of our passion, here you lie!” But you beware of scorning my verses in your pride: when Love comes late, he takes a higher toll.
Notes to Propertius I.7 Propertius defends love and love-poetry against the epic tradition and its warlike values in the person of his fellow-poet Ponticus. Ponticus was evidently writing a Thebaid, that is, a poem on one of the most popular epic subjects, the war between the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, for the throne of Thebes.
17 seven armies The expedition against Thebes was led by Polyneices and six other heroes. 23-24 These lines seem out of place here: some scholars have suggested that they really belong after line 10 or after line 14.
Propertius I.9
I kept on telling you, mocker, that love would come your way, that you would not always be so free to talk. Now, look! You sprawl and plead, surrendering to a girl; you bought her, but you are at her command. In loving-lore I rank with Jove’s prophetic doves, to tell what youth will be tamed by what girl. Grief and tears have made an expert out of me; would that, love spurned, I could be called unskilled! What good is it now, poor wretch, to write your solemn song or bewail the walls raised by Amphion’s lyre? 10 Mimnermus in one line beats all of Homer at love: peaceful Love requires a tender song. Please go and lay aside those gloomy books of yours, and sing what any girl would wish to hear! But what if you lacked the opportunity? Mad fool, now you are seeking water in mid-stream! You’re not yet even pale, or touched by the true fire: this but the leading spark of ruin to come. Then, you will rather go to face Armenian tigers, or find yourself bound to the hellish wheel, 20 than feel again and again the boy’s dart in your marrow and bend to every whim of your angry girl. Love never gives to any such an easy flight as not to pull him down from time to time. And be not fooled because you always have her there: love sinks in deeper, Ponticus, through possession; for then you cannot let your glance wander astray, nor will Love let you watch in another’s cause. Love lies concealed till he has struck you to the bone: whoever you are, shun these endless joys! 30 Flinty rocks and strong oak trees would yield to them; still more would you, you feeble breath of air. Therefore, I beg, confess your errors without delay: love’s pain is often eased by uttering it.
Notes to Propertius I.9 In a companion-piece to P.I.7, Propertius gloats over the epic poet Ponticus’s downfall at the hands of a girl. 1 telling you in P.I.7. 4 bought That is, she is either a prostitute or a slave-girl; line 25 implies the latter. 5 At Jupiter’s famous shrine at Dodona in northern Greece oracles were given by “the doves.” Some authorities think “The Doves” were priestesses, others that they were actually birds from whose murmurings or motions priests read the future. 9 solemn song See P.I.7n. 15-16 The meaning of these lines is disputed. Some scholars take “opportunity” to mean “the opportunity to compose love songs;” others, “the opportunity to see your girl.” The second sentence is a proverb meaning, “You don’t know a good thing when you see it.” 20 wheel The reference is to Ixion. 21 boy’s Love’s. 23-24 The meaning of these lines is disputed. I have translated them according to the interpretation suggested by Camps. 25-32 This passage is a little obscure. The line of thought seems to be: “You may think that, since you can have her whenever you want her, you will soon get your fill of her. On the contrary, under those circumstances you will fall more deeply in love with her than ever, since you will not have the opportunity to form other attachments. Therefore, I would not advise any man to make a habit of one girl; to keep one’s detachment in such an affair is more than flesh and blood can do.”
Propertius I.19
No more I fear now, Cynthia, death’s dreary realm, nor dread the pyre’s final fated claim, but only that my grave might hold your love no more, a sadder thought than even my last cortege. The boy has fixed himself too firmly in my heart for me to forget our love when I am dust. There, the hero Phylacides could not forget his dear wife, in the land that sees no light, but, yearning to hold his darling in his spectral arms, he came, a ghost, to his old Thessalian home. 10 There, whatever I am, my shade will be called yours: great love can cross even the shores of doom. There, let the fabled beauties surround me, all arrayed, that vanquished Ilium gave the Argive host: not one face, Cynthia, will be so sweet to me as yours, and (may Earth the just allow it!) although the doom of lingering age delay your end, your ghost at last will give joy to my tears. May you in life feel this same love before my ashes: then death will not be bitter, wherever I am. 20 Yet, Cynthia, how I fear some unjust love will turn you from my dust and make you scorn my tomb and force you, all unwilling, to dry your falling tears! Continual threats sway even a loyal girl. So let us both, while we still may, take joy in loving: however long it has, love’s time is brief.
Notes to Propertius I.19 Propertius envisions his death -- an exercise of which he seems particularly fond (see also in this anthology P.I.22ff, P.II.1.71ff, P.II.13b, P.III.16.21ff). 5 the boy Love. in my heart Literally, “in my eyes”. The ancients conceived of Love as entering the soul through the eyes, along with the vision of the beloved. 7 Phylacides This is another name for Protesilaus, who was the first Greek to fall at Troy. His ghost returned home to Greece and appeared to his wife. 13 beauties The Greeks who sacked Troy divided the city’s women among themselves as part of the booty. 16 Earth is called upon to grant Cynthia a long life, presumably because of Earth’s connection with the dead. The association of Earth (considered as a deity) with justice was also common among the ancients. 24 threats The standard lover’s threats, such as, “I’ll break down your door, I’ll kill myself, Venus will punish your pride,” etc.
Propertius II.1
You ask, how do I write so many songs of love, how my soft book comes forth, the talk of all. Not Calliope nor Apollo sings me this; my girl herself is all my inspiration. If I see her go forth in shining Coan silk, from that silk gown a scroll of verse is made; or if I see her tresses roam loose along her brow, she goes rejoicing, famous for her hair; or if her ivory fingers strike songs forth on the lyre, I marvel how her skilled hands press the strings; 10 or when she droops her drowsy eyes, that yearn for sleep, I find a thousand new themes for my poems; or if she throws her gown off to wrestle with me nude, ah then! then I compose whole Iliads! Whatever she has done, whatever she has said, vast histories spring from nowhere into being. If fate had granted me, Maecenas, talent enough to lead heroic forces into war, I would not sing of Titans, nor Ossa piled upon Olympus, to make Pelion heaven’s highway, 20 nor olden Thebes, nor the Trojan citadel, Homer’s fame, nor two seas joined as one at Xerxes’ command, or Remus’s primal realm, or high Carthage’s pride, and the Cimbrian threat, and Marius’s mighty deeds: I would celebrate your Caesar’s feats in war, with you beside great Caesar as my next concern. For often as I sang Mutina, or Philippi’s fraternal graves, or Sicily’s naval rout, and the overthrown hearths of Tuscany’s ancient race, and the conquered beach of Ptolemaic Pharos, 30 or if I sang of Egypt, and Nile, when, brought to Rome he went in ruin with seven captive streams, or kings with golden chains bound about their necks, or Actium’s prows hauled on the Sacred Way, my Muse would always weave you into these campaigns, a faithful heart, whether in peace or war. Theseus among the shades, Achilles in heaven, bring fame, one to Perithous, one to Patroclus; . . . . . . Callimachus from his frail breast could not roar out Joves’s Phlegraean clash with Enceladus, 40 nor is my genius suited to set forth in harsh verse the glory of Caesar’s house, from its Phrygian sires. The sailor talks of the winds, the plowman of his oxen, the soldier tells his wounds, the herdsman, sheep, and I, for my part, battles joined in a cozy bed: let each one spend his life in his desire! To die in love is glorious, and glorious it is, to love one love alone; may I be her sole love! For is she not always critical of fickle girls? Because of Helen, she calls the whole Iliad bad! 50 If I must take the cups that stepmother Phaedra mixed (cups fated not to do her stepson harm), or if for me the drugs of Circe must bring doom, or the Colchian’s cauldron boil on the Iolcian hearth, yet since one woman alone has ravished me of my senses, from her house shall my funeral train be led. All other human ills are healed by medicine: love only loves no doctor for its pain. Machaon healed Philoctetes’ crippled limbs; Chiron, Phillyra’s child, healed Phoenix’s eyes; 60 and the Epidaurian god with Cretan herbs restored the dead Androgeon to his fathers’s home; the Mysian youth, wounded by the Haemonian spear, found succor from the very spear that pierced him. But if anyone could heal this flaw of mine, then he alone could hand the fruits to Tantalus; he could fill vats with the maidens’ urns, so their soft necks no longer bowed from fetching endless water; he could free Prometheus’ limbs from the Caucasian crag and beat away the vulture from his breast. 70 So, therefore, whensoever the fates call in my life, and I am only a name on a patch of stone, Maecenas, you that are the envied hope of youth, true glory of my life and of my death, if any chance should lead your path by my grave, stay your British chariot with its patterned yoke, and utter tearfully these words to my mute ashes: “A cruel girl was this poor wretch’s doom!”
Notes to Propertius II.1 This first poem of Propertius’s second book sets forth his artistic creed. It is ostensibly addressed to Maecenas (lines 17ff., 71ff), and thus constitutes a formal dedication of the entire second book to him. 19-24 A catalogue of typical epic themes from Greek and Roman myth and history; for details, see Glossary. 22 Xerxes, King of Persia, in his expedition against Greece, dug a channel through the peninsula on which Mt. Athos stands, so that his fleet would not have to round the dangerous headland. This channel thus joined the gulfs on either side of the peninsula (the “two seas”). 27-30 A catalog of Augustus’s victories in the Roman Civil Wars: at Mutina he had defeated Antony’s army; at Philippi he and Antony had defeated the assassins of Julius Caesar (Roman soldiers killed each other there in large numbers; thus “fraternal graves”); in Sicily his naval forces had defeated Sextus Pompey; he had defeated a rebellious army led by Antony’s brother Lucius in a siege at the old Tuscan city of Perusia; and he finally cornered Antony and Cleopatra in Alexandria, a city symbolized by the lighthouse on Pharos. “Ptolemaic” is the name of the Graeco-Egyptian dynasty of which Cleopatra was the last ruler. 30-34 A capsule portrait, presumably drawn from life, of Augustus’s triumphal processions, which must have included 1) a float showing personifications of the Nile and the seven mouths at its delta, all in chains; 2) a contingent of captured foreign royalty marching in golden chains; 3) the prows taken as trophies by Augustus from the fleet he defeated at Actium. 37-3 Scholars disagree on the meaning of this couplet. I take it to mean: “Perithous is famed for his loyal friendship to Theseus, a hero who is now dead and in Hades; Patroclus is famed for his loyal friendship to Achilles, a hero who died but was translated to the realm of the blessed because of his greatness.” There must have been an additional couplet, now lost, continuing the line of thought: “So you also, Maecenas, shall be famed for your loyal friendship to great Caesar.” 42 Phrygian Trojan. Julius Caesar, Augustus’s adoptive father, traced his family back to the Trojan hero Aeneas. 51-52 Evidently referring to a version of the myth which we do not know: that Phaedra prepared for Hippolytus a love-potion which was either ineffective or never administered. 54 Iolcian Because it was at Iolcus that Medea rejuvenated Jason’s father Aeson by boiling him in a cauldron with magic herbs and murdered Jason’s uncle Pelias by boiling him (or persuading his daughters to do so) in a magic cauldron without herbs. 61 Epidaurian god Aesculapius, whose major shrine was at Epidauros. 67 the maidens’ The Danaids’. 76 British chariot The essedum, a light war-chariot used in Gaul and Britain, was adopted by fashionable Romans as a runabout.
Propertius II.7
What joy you must have felt, Cynthia, when the law was nullified, that caused us so much pain lest it should part us; yet not even Jove himself could separate two lovers against their will. “Yet Caesar is mighty.” Yes, but his might is in war: to conquer nations brings no power in love; for I would sooner have my head cut from my body than waste a nuptial torch to please a bride, or pass your doorway by, barred to my married state, and glance in tears at the house I had betrayed. 10 What lulling songs the wedding flute would bring you then, that flute more mournful than the funeral horn! How could I furnish sons to triumph over the Medes? My blood will never give birth to a soldier. But if our wars of love were truly battlefields, then Castor’s steed would be too small for me. From here indeed my glory has won so great renown, reaching the arctic Borysthenides. You, Cynthia, are my only joy; may I be yours; this love will be more dear than the name of father. 20
Notes to Propertius II.7 Propertius rejoices that legislation which would have forced young men of his social class to marry has been repealed. One of Augustus’s most serious social problems was the declining birth rate among the Roman upper classes. In 28 b.c. he introduced a law meant to encourage marriage by providing serious penalties for bachelorhood. In the face of intense public resistance, this law was soon replaced with milder legislation. It is interesting to note the two assumptions on which the poem is based: that Propertius could not decently continue his relationship with Cynthia if he were married, and that he could not marry Cynthia, presumably because of her social and legal status. 8 The translation and meaning of this line are disputed; I have followed Camps’s interpretation. The sense is: “My wedding procession would be a fraud, since my heart would not be in it.” 16 Castor’s horse is mythology’s war-steed par excellence. 18 arctic Propertius says “wintry;” but the idea is that they are far away in the north.
Propertius II.11
Let others write of you, or be without a name. Find praise from one who sows a sterile ground. The bleak day of your funeral shall surely bear you off on one small couch with all your gifts, and the traveler passing by will scorn your bones, nor say, “These ashes used to be a learned girl.”
Note to Propertius II.11 This short, bitter farewell implies a final break with Cynthia, but it is apparent from many subsequent poems that the affair did not end here.
Propertius II.13b
And therefore, whensoever death shall close my eyes, 17 I charge you thus to solemnize my doom: let there be then no long ancestral parade of masks, nor empty cry of trumpet for my end, 20 nor spread me a catafalque inlaid with ivory, nor lay my corpse out on a cloth-of-gold; no ranks of acolytes with incense heaped on trays: the plain last rites of a common man be mine. Grand enough my cortege, if it bears a few slim books, my ultimate offering to Persephone. But you, your naked breast all torn, shall follow after, nor ever weary of calling out my name, and press your final kisses upon my frigid lips, while Syrian unguent pours from the onyx jar. 30 Then last, when the fire kindled beneath has burned me to ash, consign my relics to a fragile urn, and plant a laurel spreading over my simple tomb, to shade the burnt-out cinders of my pyre, and write: HERE LIES A MOUND OF COARSE, IGNOBLE DUST, THAT ONCE WAS VASSAL TO A SINGLE LOVE. My sepulcher shall then achieve no less renown than has the Phthian hero’s bloodstained tomb. You also, when your fate draws near, remember me, and come white-haired to these memorial stones; 40 meanwhile, have care lest you be faithless to my grave: this earth will not be wholly dead to truth. If only in my cradle one of the Sisters Three had ruled that then I should yield up my soul! What use to cherish so life’s too precarious breath? Seek Nestor, who lived three long ages: dust. Yet if his doom of lingering age had been revoked on Ilium’s rampart by some Carian’s spear, he never would have seen Antilochus’s corpse entombed, nor cried, “O death! Why come to me so late?” 50 Yet you sometimes shall mourn the lover you have lost: love lasting is the meed of vanished men; as, when the savage boar smote delicate Adonis while hunting once, high on Idalium’s crown, they say that in those marshes his beauty was laid low, and that you, Venus, came with loosened hair; but Cynthia, vainly you will summon back my ghost: what answer could my crumbled bones return?
Notes to Propertius II.13b What the manuscripts give as a single poem, number 13, some modern editors divide into two poems, 13a (lines 1-16, not included in this anthology) and 13b (lines 17-58). 19 A Roman funeral procession, among the more distinguished families, included a display of the masks of one’s ancestors. 33 The laurel was sacred to Apollo and thus is a symbol of poetry. 38 bloodstained tomb The reference is to the sacrifice of the Trojan princess Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles after the fall of Troy. 56 For women to unbind their hair was a sign of mourning among the ancients.
Propertius II.15
O my happiness! O dazzling night! and O the bed of love my joys have sanctified! How many words we murmured with the lamp drawn near; how often we tussled together when it was doused! For now she strove against me with her breasts all bared, then drawing her gown across she sought delay. She urged open my eyes, which had lapsed into sleep, with a kiss, and said, “Indifferent man, do you lie so?” In how many varied embraces we intertwined our limbs! How long my kisses lingered on your lips! 10 We must not spoil the joys of Venus with blind performance: in love, I tell you, the eyes serve as our guides. Paris (they say) fell in love with the naked Laconian girl when she rose up from Menelaus’s bed; and naked Endymion allured the sister of Phoebus (it is said) and lay with the naked goddess in love. But if you stubbornly persist in sleeping clothed then you will feel my force, your gown torn off! And more -- if anger carries me away so far, then you will show your mother your bruised limbs! 20 Not yet do sagging breasts forbid you love’s delight: let that reproach be cast at aging matrons. While fate permits us, let us sate our eyes with love: the long night with no dawn is drawing near. If only you would bind us both in this embrace with bonds no day would ever see released! Let doves be your example, when they are joined in love, male and female, in one perfect whole. He errs, who seeks to set a term to furious love: true love does not know any boundaries. 30 The earth will sooner mock the plowman with false yield, the Sun will sooner spur on darkened steeds, and the rivers begin to call their streams back to their sources, and the seas drain off, leaving the fishes dry, before I ever turn my passion to another: while I live I am hers, hers will I be in death. But if she grants till then such nights as this to me, a single year would be a long life’s span; and if she gives them often, I would never die: one night like this could make a man a god! 40 If only other men would run their life’s course thus, sprawling at ease, their limbs weighed down with wine, we’d see no cruel iron blades, nor ships of war, nor Roman corpses rolled by the Actian sea, nor Rome, so oft assailed by triumphs over her own, weary of loosening her hair to mourn. This surely those to come will find to praise in us: our wars of love have never offended the gods. But, while our light still lasts, fail not to reap life’s joy: though you give me all your kisses, you give too few, 50 and, as our withering garlands have let their petals fall (see them here, strewn everywhere in the wine), so too for us, who now breathe deeply of love’s pride, the dawning morn may seal our final doom.
Notes to Propertius II.15 Cynthia has been kind, inspiring a rapturous hymn of triumph. 13 Laconian girl Helen. 15 the sister of Phoebus The Moon (Luna). 22 Literally, “Let that be her worry, who now is ashamed to have borne children;” a reflection of the Roman view that passionate love affairs were natural for the young but inappropriate for mature married people.
Propertius II.16
A praetor, Cynthia, now has come from Illyria’s land, much loot for you, but much distress for me. Why couldn’t he have perished off the Ceraunian point? What gifts, O Neptune, I’d have given you! Without me now the festive tables are piled high, without me now, the door gapes all night long. So if you’re smart be sure to cash in while you can: shear this dumb sheep, while his fleece still is thick; and when, his wealth all squandered, he finally is poor, tell him to sail for new Illyrias! 10 Cynthia’s not impressed by power or lictor’s rods: she weighs a lover only by his purse. But come, O Venus, now to aid me in my grief: make his limbs burst apart with endless lust! So, anyone at all can purchase love with gifts? Great Jove, how base that girls are swapped for goods! She’d always have me search the earth’s far shores for gems and bids me bring her gifts from Tyre itself. If only none were rich at Rome, and even our chief could live within a little hut of straw! 20 Then girls would never give themselves in trade for gifts, but grow white-headed in one lover’s house, nor would you ever have slept seven nights away from me, your white arms flung about so foul a man; not from my sins (I call you to witness!), but everywhere beauty is always joined to faithlessness. A barbarian, who stamped at your gate with pent-up lust, now with sudden luck holds all my realm. Think what grief those bitter gifts brought Eriphyla, how painfully the bride Creusa burned. 30 Will no wrong that you do me finally end my tears? Or must I grieve forever for your crimes? How many days have passed since I took any joy in shows, or on the Field, or at my feasts! Yes, I should be ashamed, ashamed -- but as they say, disgraceful Love is deaf to all reproach. Regard the chief who filled just now the Actian waves with the empty roar of his doomed soldiery. A shameless love compelled him to turn his sails in flight and seek a refuge at the earth’s far bounds. 40 This is Caesar’s virtue, this is Caesar’s fame: with conquering hand he sheathed his conquering sword. But all the gold he gives you, and all the emeralds and precious stones, glowing with tawny sheen, would that I saw swift gales bear them off to the void; may they turn to earth and water before your eyes. Not always does Jove smile calmly at lovers’ broken vows and heedless turn a deaf ear to their prayers. You have seen the thunder roll all throughout heaven’s dome, and the lightning leap from his celestial home, 50 not sent by the Pleiades nor watery Orion, nor from mere nothing falls the lightning’s rage. It is then that he wreaks vengeance on girls’ false-heartedness, since the god himself was once deceived in love. So do not value your Sidonian gown so high that you must fear, when the dark sou’wester blows.
Notes to Propertius II.16 Cynthia has taken a rich lover, prompting a typical elegiac tirade against the commercialization of love, such as we also find elaborated in Tibullus (T.II.3, T.II.4) and reduced to absurdity by Ovid (O.I.10). 1 praetor The praetorship was a high office concerned with the administration of justice at Rome. Upon expiration of his term of office, a praetor was normally sent to administer one of the provinces. This latter office was properly called a propraetorship, but here as often praetor is used loosely for the more accurate propraetor. A Roman propraetor had boundless opportunities for personal enrichment through extortion and graft; Cynthia’s lover had evidently become rich as the propraetor of Illyria. 11 High Roman officials were accompanied by attendants called lictors, who carried fasces, bundles of rods symbolic of authority. 20 In Propertius’s day there were two huts maintained at Rome which were venerated as replicas of the huts in which Romulus and his band of original Romans had lived. 27 The text and translation of this line are disputed; I have followed the interpretation suggested by Richardson. The praetor evidently had been an unsuccessful suitor of Cynthia before he became rich. The poet here must be using the term “barbarian” loosely, much as we would use it today, to mean “vicious oaf;” no praetor in the first century b.c could have been literally of barbarous birth. 33-34 Typical favorite pastimes of young Roman men: watching the various state-sponsored games, pageants, and theatrical performances, exercising on the Field of Mars, and giving dinner parties. 37-40 chief History is written by winners, and the winners of the battle of Actium recorded that Cleopatra sailed off in panic before battle was well joined and that the love-besotted Antony slavishly followed her, abandoning his army and fleet to the mercy of the enemy. This account, which has been accepted by subsequent historians, playwrights, novelists, and film-makers, is almost certainly a serious distortion of the truth. For an enlightening discussion written for the general reader see Grant, pp. 203-215. 40 the world’s far bounds Egypt, where Antony and Cleopatra took refuge after Actium. 42 In other words, after Augustus had defeated all his enemies on the battlefield, he quit killing people, a moderation all too rarely displayed by the despots of Rome, or, for that matter, of other nations. 54 This probably refers to some myth which has not come down to us.
Propertius II.28c
Persephone, may this your mercy last, and you, Persephone’s consort, be not over-cruel. There are so many thousands of lovely ghosts in Hell: let one fair girl, please, stay among the living. 50 With you is Iope, with you is dazzling Tyro, with you Europe, and shameless Pasiphae, and all the beauties ancient Troy and Achaea had, and Thebes, and aged Priam’s ruined realm, and all the Roman girls that may be ranked among them, all dead: the greedy fire now has them all. Beauty is not forever, nor anyone’s luck eternal: distant or near, a death awaits us all. Since you, light of my life, are freed from this great peril, pay Diana the ritual gifts you owe, 60 and keep your vigil for her, now a goddess, who once was a heifer, and give her -- ah me! -- the ten pure nights you vowed.
Notes to Propertius II.28c Most manuscripts give Propertius II.28 as a single long poem dealing with Cynthia’s illness and recovery, but most scholars divide it into two or three related poems. In this piece, the poet gives thanks for Cynthia’s recovery. 48 consort Dis or Pluto, god of the underworld. The ancients were always reluctant to utter his name. 56 fire As often, the funeral pyre is used as a synonym for “death.” 59-62 Cynthia has apparently made two vows, payable on her recovery: 1) gifts to Diana, and 2) a standard ten-day vigil to Isis (described as the “goddess who once was a heifer,” because she was identified with Io) during which she would have to abstain from sex.
Propertius II.29a
Last night, light of my life, while wandering drunkenly, without attending slaves to lead the way, I met a throng of tiny boys -- I do not know how many (fear forbade me number them). Some held little torches, others carried arrows, and some, I thought, were readying chains for me. But they were naked. One, friskier than the rest, said, “Grab him! You all know him well by now! This is the man the angry woman hired us for!” He spoke, and then the noose was round my neck. 10 One bid them push me into their midst, and another said, “Perish the man who thinks we are not gods! She waits for you hours on end, not that you deserve it, but you, fool, seek some other woman’s door. When she undoes the bands of her Sidonian blue night-scarf, and turns her drowsy gaze to yours, perfumes will breathe on you, from no Arabian spice, but that Love made himself, with his own hands. Now spare him, brothers; now he vows a faithful love, and see! here is the house that we protect.” 20 And then, when I had put my cloak back on, they said, “Now go, and learn to spend your nights at home.”
Notes to Propertius II.29a Propertius, after drinking the night away, is attacked by a gang of Cupids. The manuscripts give this poem and the next as a single piece, but most editors divide it into two separate elegies. 3 boys The boys are little love gods. 21 cloak Some scholars believe that a couplet in which the Loves took off the poet’s cloak has fallen out of the text after line 10; others argue that we are to assume they removed his cloak as part of a standard stop-and-search procedure.
Propertius II.29b
It was dawn, and I decided to visit and see if she slept 23 alone: Cynthia lay alone in her bed. I stood amazed: she never had seemed more lovely to me, not even when, dressed in a gown of deep sea-blue, she went from here to tell her dreams to Vesta the Pure, fearing they boded harm for her or for me. Just so she seemed to me now, freshly aroused from sleep. Ah! What intrinsic power has dazzling beauty! 30 “Well!” she said, “you are a bright and early spy on your girl! Did you think that my behavior would be like yours? I am not so loose; one lover’s acquaintance will satisfy me: you, or perhaps some other one, truer than you. You will find no trace of another’s form pressed into the bed, no indication that two have lain wallowing here. See, no breath is rising up from all over my body as a tell-tale sign of adulterous goings-on.” She spoke, and holding me off with her right hand spurned my caresses, and leaping up sprang from the chamber on soft-slippered feet. 40 Thus I, the guard of so sacred a love, am proved a fool. Since then I have not had one happy night.
Notes to Propertius II.29b A companion-piece (or perhaps a continuation) of the foregoing poem, very similar in subject and treatment to P.I.3. For the numbering, see introductory note to P.II.29a. 27-28 The Romans believed that ominous dreams could be “defused” by telling them to a deity. 37 Some scholars believe this refers to heavy breathing, others that an odor is meant.
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