Sextus Propertius, Elegies (ed. Vincent Katz)

Table of Contents

Go to

"orphic" occurs once on this page.

Introduction

. . . ho passato l'infanzia schiavo di questo senso
alto, irrimediabile, di un impegno immenso.
Era l'unico modo per sentire la vita,
l'unica tinta, l'unica forma: ora è finita.

PASOLINI

Propertius was an immoral poet. Questions of morality which so troubled Vergil and are neatly synopsized by dexterous Horace, are not even a concern to Propertius. But as he plummets to the depths of fixation, he allows a clear view of its extremes. This may be either a warning, as he claims, an invitation, or a challenge.

Propertius arrived in Rome at the right time. Italy was recovering from years of bloody civil strife, and Caesar Augustus had seemed to put things right.¹ For one of Propertius' class,² it was a time of relative calm and limitless horizons. Rome was a highly literary culture, which felt somewhat dwarfed by the massive accomplishments of its Greek predecessors, but nonetheless sucked wholeheartedly from that rich source. Homer and Hesiod were “ancient” to the Romans, Sappho and Archilochus only slightly less so. Latin literature itself had a distinguished history by Augustus' time, Ennius' epics having formed its base over a century earlier.

Gallus, probably, and Catullus certainly, played the roles of provocateurs, enfants terribles. Catullus wrote graphically of sex, and patrician Rome gulped it down. More important, he wrote it in a way that was compellingly “modern”--colloquial, plain, yet mannered and ironic. Where did this odd combination spring from? Not from the Classical poets. Irony was not the forte of Homer, Sappho, Tyrtaeus, or even Archilochos. Aischylos erected great block rants of imagery, savage imagining, Sophokles perfected the dramatic arc of tragedy, but both maintain a clear, aggressive, almost polemical thematic advance. Propertius himself claims a forebear in Mimnermos, but, though he adapted the Greek poet's meter, his tone is vastly different.³

It is only by the end of the 5th century B.C., as the Athenian tyranny shows signs of collapse, and the brutal brawl with Sparta etiolates the peninsula, that a poetry springs up, less than crystal clear in its motivation, sensing fresh faults may be appearing in old ideals, that what once shone pure--the Truth, in political and economic terms--may have to be questioned. The poets that arise, and staring at the shreds around them, give voice to this vista, are Euripides and Aristophanes. Euripides took Helen to Egypt, and watched her sit. A well-known variant, but not the most triumphant, or, it should be noted, tragic, in the Aristotelian sense. Aristophanes, writing at the turn of the century, witness to Athens' sack, wrote politically motivated, satiric dramas of great weight and hilarity. His combination of rough humor with immense learning pointed a way for coming generations.

Horace spoke of adapting Greek forms and meters to the Roman tongue. His models were Sappho, Alcaeus, and Archilochus.⁴ Catullus and Gallus were the first to point directly to an entirely different bunch of Greeks--the Alexandrians. Egypt was part of the Greco-Roman world. Minion to the Empire, it was a bastion of erudition and scholarship. In the Hellenistic period, several poets emerged who provided the first stylistic altemative since Euripides and Aristophanes. They reacted strongly to the quagmire of heroic epic that continued to be written.⁵ One, Kallimachos, even wrote, “A big book is a big piece of crap.” They praised refinement to the point of effeteness, anemia. They preferred to err on the side of obscurantism.

The heavy hitters were Kallimachos and Theokritos. The latter's Idylls were among the best-loved poems of fast-track Romans. When dashing down the coast from Rome to vacation at a resort like Baiae, along with sensual diversions like sailing, swimming, and massage--not to mention the continual sexual intrigue--one was sure to enjoy delights of a musical and poetic nature. Theokritos was perfect, as he portrayed ultra-urbane sophistication, clothed in a primal, bucolic setting. His shepherds whine about their lacklust, or he tells obscure mythological tales with similar themes. It was an air of Greece--the Greece that was, even for Theokritos. He, even for Theokritos. He lived in bustling AIexandria, where boys shouted outside his window, carrying fresh fish to the market.

Hellenistic poets began this bristling love/hate relationship with The Golden Age. They loved something pure, innocent, grand--that they could never possess--and yet they hated anyone unaware of the distance that separated them from their ideal. Kallimachos was a scholar employed by the famous library in Alexandria, who formalized the desire for a learned, delicate, polished poetry. He also experimented formally, writing hymns, epigrams, court poetry, and aetiological works. It was part of the Hellenistic thing not to do what had been done in the past. It was artistically rebellious and sought refuge in an arcane yet deeply sensual sensibility.

Catullus firmly turned the spotlight onto these sensibilities, especially in his long poems, one of which is a translation of Kallimachos' Lock of Berenike, another an epyllion on the Argonauts, while a third depicts the crazed Kybele cult. But it was probably Cornelius Gallus⁶ who began imitating the bucolic urbanity that we find echoed in Vergil's first poems, the Eclogues, love poems with a strong Theokritos influence. We know that Vergil admired his older contemporary. Eclogue X is addressed to Gallus, and many critics believe there may be stylistic imitations--a common form of homage and experimentation among Roman writers. We'll never know, because all of Gallus' poems have perished.⁷

Enter Gaius Sextus Propertius. A young man not quite twenty, new to the city. He had grown up on the Umbrian/Etruscan border near Perusia (modern Perugia), his family, like Vergil's, the victim of land reassignment when Augustus came to power. Imagine Propertius getting onto a horse and riding down dusty roads, paying a farmer for a night's stay, and some food. He stops and bathes in a lake surrounded by cypresses. Next day, he arrives in Rome, meets his uncle and aunt, with whom he will stay. He can't wait to go out, but his uncle lectures him on the propriety of a public career. A young man of his breeding, etc., should be a lawyer perhaps. But old uncle has had too much wine and soon falls asleep. Young Sextus slips out.

All around him is everything he has only read about before. What thrilled him in the Greek poets is now before his eyes--ritual processions, dancing accompanied by cymbal and tympanum, animal sacrifice, strange foods being carried through the streets with their concomitant smells, and all around humanity--flesh of all sorts commonly thrust together in a proximity that necessitates contact, exploration. When he finally gets home, he is exhausted. But he has learned one thing: he is a poet.

As the months go by, invitations are offered, chance encounters occur. It is, after all, a small world, to those on the inside, and Sextus, though quiet, is intelligent and witty. He meets placid Vergil and rambunctious Horace, the former always going home to write, the latter always running after a boy or girlfriend.

At Vergil's house, which is plain and refined and possesses a magnificent view of the city, Vergil reads the beginning of his new poem on the founding of Rome. Everyone ends up wet-eyed--not from patriotism, they just can't believe anyone can write a poem that good, let alone revive the dull, ambling dactylic hexameter in their own language. Horace grabs Vergil by the shoulders and kisses him on the mouth. “Lead us on. I love you.” And goes to get more wine. Vergil has a somewhat bemused smile on his face. He really is not at all sure of himself (and never will be). He is only aware of a deeply satisfying physical facility with language, that leads him on, of its own volition. And he is aware of the time he lives in, the precise light, the way Horace's girlfriend has her hair cut, the way she smiles, the feelings one has at a religious procession of an eastern cult.

He approaches the young poet on the sofa, whom Horace has brought. “I've lived here four years,” he begins. “I love the light.” Vergil is attracted to the young man's seriousness, his furrowed brow with shock of dark hair tumbling down, his full lips. But he is not one to take advantage. Instead, he draws the younger poet out. Gradually, as they speak, aided by the wine and music, Sextus becomes passionate. “I hate bombast!” he fulminates. “I agree with Kallimachos--I want to write polished poetry.”

All of a sudden, everyone is laughing. Horace is down on all fours, and a dancer is pretending to whip him. “Faster, faster, old ass! I'll drive you to work, yet!” In that moment, Propertius has arrived. Without knowing what he was doing, other than pursuing a good time, he has found his world.

In the ensuing weeks, as the winter rains come, Sextus works on his book. He has been involved in a tempestuous affair with a brilliant, beautiful, slightly older woman, and he has decided to document it in poetry. In fact, he is obsessed by the woman he calls Cynthia.⁸ Whether he is feeling up or down, the emotion is intense, and it is this intensity he wants to infuse his poems with. He wants them current, daily--decidedly Roman. Learned, refined, yes, but he wants the aroma of his daily life, and most of all, the spontaneity of his reactions. He is aware this has not been done in poetry before.

Eventually, he begins showing the poems to his friends, and their reaction is immediate and electric. They can't believe it. Filled with youthful energy, the poems also ripple with the strength of immense learning, incredible for a boy of nineteen. Vergil philosophically acknowledges that a star has fallen to earth and entered Sextus' poems. Horace, hogwild on the high of this new genius, begins taking Sextus and his poems everywhere, insisting on reading them aloud everywhere he goes, until Sextus himself is urged to read them, which he does. At the end of one such night, Horace, bleary-eyed, looks into Propertius' eyes. He is crying and laughing. For once, he is speechless. No witticism utters forth. Sometimes, between poets, there is no need for words.

Shortly afterwards, a friend of Vergil and Horace returns to town. He is a knight and advisor to the princeps himself. In fact, he has been out campaigning with Augustus in southern Italy, meeting with big traders there, making sure they are happy with the new trade agreements with Africa and Persia. Maecenas is not only a friend of Vergil and Horace, he is their facilitator. He makes their lives easy, so they can have the leisure their genius requires to nourish itself. In particular, he has introduced them to Augustus' court, where they are regular visitors. There is one small hitch to all this, nothing really, since it is probably something one would do, more or less, on one's own anyway, but. . . They must include praise of the emperor in their work. It doesn't have to be much nor often. But it must be there. For Horace, this is not a problem, as the government seems pretty fine to him, better than the bloodbaths of the late Republic for sure, he does indeed support Augustus. For Vergil it is another matter, like everything for him one of dark foreboding and late-night misgiving. But he has accepted and will perform his task admirably, leaving only the subtlest fissures in his perfect, heroic picture of the Roman conquest.⁹

When Maecenas arrives that night, Propertius recognizes him immediately as an insider. He is a match to Horace's wit, and the two are constantly lighting up the party. He comes with news of the South--strange seafood, exotic women--and an equally ardent desire to know what's been happening in Rome during his absence. Horace draws out his hand, chiding Maecenas that his hair and clothing are completely out of style now, his “line” a thing of yesterday (obviously ridiculous, as Maecenas is the flashiest dresser in the place). Maecenas smiles, white teeth standing out against dark skin, and grabs the poet lovingly by the neck.

After meeting Maecenas, Propertius really begins to take off. Maecenas implicitly loves his poetry, and he sees in him one of his own--sophisticated, intelligent, in the proper spaces decadent, in a word Roman. Rome under Augustus was as at its height, or near it. Its boundaries continued to expand for about a century, till it climaxed under Trajan and Hadrian, but by then it had lost much of its efficacy, and, bloated, was set to decline.¹⁰ After Augustus, ruled a series of capricious tyrants who lacked his diplomacy and restraint, culminating in the excesses of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian.

Augustus was a far-minded ruler. He was tyrant, his power absolute, and he passed strong moral legislation, in an attempt to cut down on licentiousness rampant in the city, In his own political interest, he went so far as to punish his daughter, Julia, as an offender.¹¹ Rome's upper class was content with Augustus' visionary grasp of Rome's and his own grandeur. There remained, however, a conflict on the issue of social mores.

It is into this world that the young Sextus Propertius, fresh from Perugia, finds himself thrust. At first, it's a blast! Maecenas gets Propertius' first book published, and it makes him an instant celebrity. He makes Catullus look like an old fool! He has nerve, he is sullen, he doesn't give anything away, and, most importantly, he is one of us. He is now. He stands up to Catullus and kicks Gallus on his butt. So he's whirled about the city like a rock star. Parties here, readings there, concerts, dancing, soirées, late night intellectual discussions with beautiful young Romans of both sexes, sexual encounters in noblemen's gardens, trips to Ostia, the beaches, wine, seafood, a lightning trip to Baiae for the week, and finally, a meeting with the princeps himself.

Sextus is ready by now. Fairly sober, cocky, he walks in with his two mates and Maecenas, finely shaved and perfumed, his shock of dark hair curling down provocatively. Like his best friend Maecenas, Augustus is highly intelligent and sophisticated, though not as refined. He reads (or is read to) widely, and regularly hears the latest from Vergil and Horace, among others. He enjoys hearing history read. Like most Roman nobles, he has the requisite familiarity with Greek literature and history. He also has a desire to create a poetic testament to the culture (he believes) he has created that will equal Homer, Sappho, and Aischylos. He is aware that great cultures produce great art, and he is partly responsible for kindling the fire, patent among all the Augustan poets, to write Greek poetry in Latin.¹² The difference between Maecenas and Augustus is the latter's hard stare out the window over the trees, where the golden, dusty light of sunset is once again painting his city in the most beautiful colors known to man. Maecenas will delve into the demi-monde and come up with a Propertius. Augustus cannot, and will not. Propertius' poetry, though, is beyond question brilliant, and Augustus loves it instantly, learning some lines to quote to visiting dignitaries in the coming weeks.

For a while, the world is Sextus.' Finally, though, comes the message that Maecenas (read Augustus) would like something more from the new genius. Not now, maybe not this month, but sometime, when the time is right, he would really love for Sextus to write an urbane, learned poem on a Roman theme. Sextus laughs it off, goes out, drinks. But it doesn't go away. Days go by, and still it is there, facing him. He goes to see Horace. The older poet greets him warmly, but Sextus notices a little sadness in his friend's eye, which doesn't quite meet his. Horace is in the midst of preparations to travel to the Sabine farm Maecenas has procured for him. He will go there, relax, work on a new set of poems on philosophical themes. Philosophical? “Yes, well, Epicurean tempered with a certain Cynicism. ‘Carpe Diem’ was a great song, but I can't play it all my life. Rock'n'roll is for people under thirty, like you.” Sextus notices, for the first time, some greying at the great poet's temples. Propertius sinks to his knees. He implores Horace not to go, or to come back quickly. Horace laughs, pulls the tearful Sextus up. He can come visit any time. There's plenty of room. They call a servant for some wine, and Horace begins to sing.

Propertius wrote two more books of love poetry, and then he tried to write Augustus' poetry, which was published in his fourth, and final, book. The poems, on strange bits of Roman lore and obscure mythological explanations, are fascinating, but Propertius' heart is not in it. They don't possess the sinuous energy of his earlier work.¹³ By this time, Vergil is dead, having completed the poem Augustus wanted, his masterpiece Roman epic. Another poet, Tibullus, under Masalla's patronage, is also writing elegiac love poems, which are nice but lack Propertius' visceral verve. The only bright spot is another young poet, the latest star on the scene, Publius Ovidius Naso. Propertius is thirty, Ovid twenty. Ovid is of the same cast as Propertius and clings to him like ivy to a column. They go to illicit parties, sing together, and share some of the same lovers.

Propertius sees in Ovid a vindication of his own life's work and decides to share with him everything he knows. Ovid has a maddening facility with language (which, in fact, becomes a fault at times, his writing facile). He becomes Propertius' protégé, writing three books of his own love elegiacs, as well as an Art of Love and a Remedy for Love. In a sense, Propertius and Ovid have formed a single corpus, the younger poet extending and consummating all the poetic concepts engendered by the elder. Ovid has fared somewhat better through the centuries, perhaps because he is more genial, more approachable than Propertius. Propertius' poems never give an easy out--linguistically or thematically.

When he dies, Propertius has no reason to doubt his poetry will survive forever, meshed as it is with the greatness both of the empire and of his contemporaries. It is centuries, though, before his poetry really comes to light again, unlike Ovid, who is a favorite of the Elizabethans, Metaphysicals, and practically everybody since.¹⁴ A.E. Housman, the English poet and self-taught Latinist, was the first to champion Propertius' technical brilliance in a series of articles.¹⁵ Then, Ezra Pound, always one with a nose for style, wrote his Homage To Sextus Propertius, which remains the best version of Propertius in English.¹⁶ But one cannot forget the great J. W Mackail, who wrote at the turn of the century, “The boy of twenty had already mastered the secret of elegiac verse, which even Catullus had used stiffly and awkwardly, and writes it with an ease, a colour, a sumptuousness of rhythm which no later poet ever equalled.”¹⁷

Texts of Greek and Roman literature come down to us as copies of copies of copies of copies. Mainly preserved in the church by literate clergy, copies were made when someone wanted one or wanted to give one to a friend.¹⁸ Eventually, there is no “master” version. It is easy to see how precarious the survival of such texts is. But also, through the centuries, errors crept into the copying of the texts. Sometimes, the copyists didn't even read Latin, they simply copied the texts brutally, mark for mark. Other times, the eye of the copyist might slip, and he might confuse one occurrence of a word with a different occurrence a few lines on, leading to transpositions of lines or even gibberish. These are referred to as “corruptions” in the text, and since the turn of the century, a great deal of energy, more than at any other time, has been put into analyzing these texts and devising solutions for their corruptions.

As a translator, then, you need to come to your own decisions in all cases of corruption in order to do justice to the text. After that, you're pretty much on your own. You have to get all the sense and as much of the style as possible. Eventually, you come to situations where you sacrifice grammar in order to preserve stylistic unity. I have tried to preserve the shifts in tone from high to low language that I see in Propertius. Ultimately, you do create your own poem, but hopefully one Propertius would recognize.

The poems in Propertius' first book are arranged meticulously. There is a fabulous interaction between the poems that makes the book as a whole resonate in a way practically unheard of in antiquity. Of course, there had always been formal groupings. But where the Eclogues is a series, Propertius Book 1 is a sequence. Latin poetry has a high degree of what Frank O'Hara calls Personism.¹⁹ Catullus dedicated many of his poems to individuals. This had the same effect as our dedications on poems today, “to James Schuyler.” In Propertius there is a Personist interlocking.

It is useful to examine the poems in terms of modes of address. Every poem is addressed to a specific person except two--8B (which I call “the Cynthia ode”--it expresses his highest satisfaction with his lover) and 16, in which the beloved's doorway narrates. It is interesting, not simply to know to whom the author²⁰ is talking, but because the address gives each poem a thrust, attitude. It socializes the poems. They become part of a milieu.

At the highest level of complexity are those poems with multiple perspective, where the thrust is blurred somewhat or altered by the change or variety of address in the poem. This is achieved most commonly by shifting from third person description of “her” to second person address to Cynthia (as “you.”)²¹ The multiple perspective comes into play at moments of heightened emotion, and it often lends ambiguity to the poem, something I find more “realistic” than a single perspective. I believe it gives a better overall picture of a scene, showing how two or more view it, rather than only one.

The four poems addressed to Tullus (1, 6, 14, 22) emphasize the distance or separation between Propertius and Tullus.²² It is significant that the first and last poems of the book are both dedicated to Tullus. In 22, Propertius reiterates what he made plain in the first programmatic poem--Tullus can never experience what Propertius experiences, and it is this difference that gives Propertius' life its value. What does the difference consist in, exactly? Knowledge, through suffering, imparted by his teacher, Cynthia. Cynthia has taught him and transferred power to him, which then becomes his own.

The poems addressed purely to Cynthia (with no perspectival shift) (2, 8A, 11, 15, 18, 19) show a progression. In the first, 2 (which can be seen as the opening poem of the book after programmatic 1), Propertius is still critical of Cynthia, though cautious. Later, he is querulous, but has learned well his subordinate position. Finally, in 15, he is reduced to begging his teacher not to abandon him (“ . . . be whatever you want, just not alien.”) This is the great keening poem to the end of the relationship.²³ From here on in the book, Cynthia never reappears. l6 is the doorway poem, in 17 Propertius is fretting alone at sea, 18 is an ode to solitude (“Here one can release hidden grief freely,/if only the rocks can keep quiet.”), and in 19 Propertius tries to reconcile himself to death. He muses, tragically, pathetically, on his own demise, but “ . . . the fear that you might be missing from my burial/this is worse than death itself.” He tries to comfort himself with the platitude “ . . . a great love breaks through the shores of death,” but it rings horribly hollow. His greatest claim to worth is that “None was as beautiful to me as you, Cynthia,” his abject devotion. It is almost comic as he sobs, “I'm so afraid unfair Love will drag you from/my grave, Cynthia, with contempt for my burial/and force you unwillingly to dry your falling tears!/The most faithful girl is bent by constant innuendo.” Propertius ends the poem intriguingly, with a dull platitude that had sounded so vital when Catullus had uttered it.²⁴

The poem addressed to Bassus (4) and the ones to Gallus (5, 10, 13, 20) and Ponticus (7, 9) emphasize the servitude of Propertius' type of love and the punishment meted out when the loved one (quite frequently) feels wronged. The most the lover can do in response is to call her words or actions “unjust.” Cynthia, of course, is not merely great in bed.²⁵ She is an intellectual--capable in the arts of music and poetry.²⁶ We see a connection between Cynthia's roles of teacher, power-giver, and artist. There is a relationship between knowledge (sex) and art. There is a specific type of poetry suited to love--Propertius' poetry--and it gives him his power.²⁷ The last poems of the book, then (20--22), can be seen to display Propertius at his most potent. Cynthia has vanished from the scene, and Propertius is exercising his own gifts as vates, seer, possessor of knowledge.²⁸ In 20, he warns Gallus to keep an eye on his boyfriend, if he doesn't want to lost him to sex-crazed nymphs. In 21, he takes the part of his friend, Gallus, one last time, telling a comrade on the battlefield the story of his downfall, so he can relay it. And in 22, Propertius coldly, briefly, states his history, while taking a dig at his native land.

Within the book, the multiplicity of addresses has already created a complex of relationships, besides Propertius and Cynthia's. There is Bassus, tempting Propertius with other girls, who is warned not to cross Cynthia. There is Gallus, likewise warned, and we observe his punishment firsthand in the delightfully malicious poem 13. There is the soldier Tullus, with whom Propertius continually contrasts himself. And there is Ponticus, an epic poet whom Propertius berates for stylistic idiocy, who is warned not to scoff at love (and love poetry) in poem 7, and who meets his just retribution in poem 9. Poems 7 and 9 frame the centerpiece of 8A and 8B where Propertius almost loses Cynthia in 8A, only to achieve his highest joy with her in 8B. Of course, by the end of the book, Cynthia has basically deserted Propertius.²⁹

Finally, then, the polyperspectival songs. The most unusual poem in the book, perhaps, is poem 3, which recounts Propertius' return after a night's carousing to find Cynthia asleep. He is filled with libidinous urges, which he acts on, ultimately waking Cynthia, who sternly rebukes him for deserting her earlier in the evening. The address shifts from third person to second person at the moments of Propertius' most heightened passion, back to third when Cynthia wakes up (his bringdown). It is clear how Propertius uses this (what might at first seem confusion) to create vividly in language a heightened, drunken, libidinous state. This development before our eyes is a stunning linguistic achievement, and it helps to be clear about what the poet is doing, so we can then simply re-read the poem for pleasure.³⁰ A parallel is poem 17, where Propertius has taken a sea voyage and is cursing himself for being so far from Cynthia (though most likely, he went on the trip “to get away for a while”). He becomes somewhat frenzied at the thought of dying at sea, with no Cynthia to hold him, and in his frenzy he shifts again from third person thoughts of “her” to second person address of “you.” Finally, calming down, he returns to thoughts of what “she” would do if he were to die, happily, in her presence.

I hope the reader will not find the following chart of addresses offensive, for I believe it helps to elucidate the book's immaculate structure. I have arranged the chart with approximate position indicating psychological state of narrator at time of poem, from pessimistic on the left to optimistic on the right.

1.Tullus
		2. Cynthia
		3. third-second-third
	4. Bassus
5. Gallus
6. Tullus
7. Ponticus
8A. Cynthia
					8B. Cynthia Ode
			9. Ponticus
				10. Gallus
		11. Cynthia
		12. eyes of Rome
			13. Gallus
		14. Tullus
15. Cynthia
		16. doorway poem
17. third-second-third
18. Cynthia
19. Cynthia
		20. Gallus
	21. soldier
	22. Tullus

In fact, an argument could be made that Cynthia has abandoned Propertius immediately after 8B. In poem 11, Cynthia has fled to Baiae for a rest. Since she has just left, Propertius feels confident enough to bark out some commands (Just leave corrupt Baiae as soon as possible. Prop. 1.11 although he deflects it finally by cursing the place, not her). In 12, Propertius really faces his loss (I am no longer what I was . . . Prop. 1.12 ) but realizes he can never change (Cynthia was the first, Cynthia will be the last. Prop. 1.12 ). In 13, as well, Propertius admits, My love ripped away, I'm vacant, alone Prop. 1.13 , before going on to focus on Gallus' romantic plight. 14 is a fascinating poem. It seems to rival 8B in its vivacity and surging enthusiasm (it ends As long as she's happy with me, I'll fear no powers, and I'll despise Alcinous' gifts Prop. 1.14 ). He mocks Tullus' riches, bragging great wealth has no effect on Love Prop. 1.14 and extols the virtues of sex with Cynthia in comparison, in a mouth-watering description so vivid it's almost real. But it's not. She's not happy with him (she's with some poor kid Prop. 1.14 ). Propertius knows this, but covers it in a fretful, almost psychotic veil of confidence.

Not many of the poems are dramatic. They are more hortatory--or complaining. And here we see most clearly the link between these poems and their Greek elegiac predecessors. Poets like Mimnermos and Theognis also wrote poems of pleading and argumentation, although the genre as a whole is couched in war and death.³¹

Another important layering of complexity occurs in Propertius' variation of tense within a poem. The most salient feature is an unusually frequent use of the future tense, which is related to Propertius' powers as sufferer-seer. I have analyzed the shifts of tense in Propertius' first book of poems, and an interesting fact arises. In the first three poems, the future occurs only at the end of Poem 1 (and we have already mentioned how Poem 1 is in a way separate from the book, an introduction to it, conceivably composed later than the rest). The future becomes prevalent starting at Poem 4. From Poem 4 to Poem 9, the future is heavily relied on.³² This is because Propertius has gained his power from Cynthia and is confident in making predictions and giving advice. This confidence comes to a head in Poems 8B, 9, and 10, where Propertius can be seen as an expert on amorous affairs, and more than that, a kind of love doctor, capable of aiding the afflicted.³³ Sometime shortly after this, Cynthia rejects Propertius, and while he continues to use the future, there is much more recourse to the past tense, as Propertius reflects on what has happened and searches for parallels in mythology.³⁴

Elegiac poetry gets its name from its metrical unit--the elegiac couplet--which was used by the Greek elegists, as well as the Roman. It is composed of one line of verse in dactylic hexameter and a second in pentameter. Dactylic hexameter is the strong, flowing meter used in the epic poetry of Homer and Vergil. By combining dactylic hexameter with pentameter, however, the poetry is constantly deflated, because, for every bold, frontal statement in the first line of the couplet, there follows a second lime that is somewhat lacking in metrical grandeur.³⁵ Propertius is recognized as a metrical genius, the equal of Vergil.³⁶

In the manuscripts, there are no line breaks, let alone stanza breaks. I have included stanzas because I feel they are relevant to the rhetorical concept of “period,” which can be thought of as the breath necessary to express a given thought--the musical phrase, if you will, made up, of course, of such regularized pieces as metrical feet and alternating dactylic and iambic lines. I also feel stanzas make it easier for the modern reader to follow Propertius' sometimes arcane trains of thought.

Propertius prided himself on being learned. He often used versions of myths obscure even to erudite Romans. That was part of the fun. Reading these poems was a very literary, as well as sensual, experience. For the 20th-century reader, it is more important to see how Propertius uses a myth rather than getting bogged down in all the details (though, of course, the more you know of the details, the more you will be able to see how he uses them). I've provided notes in an attempt to clarify some of the references. Briefly, in poem 1, Propertius uses mythology to illustrate domination, in 2 modesty, in 3 repose, in 13 intense passion, in 15 fidelity, and in 19 death.

Poem 20 provides us with an interesting opportunity to examine the use of myth in three poets--Propertius and two of his Alexandrian predecessors, Theokritos and Apollonios of Rhodes. Apollonios includes the tale of the drowning of Herakles' boyfriend Hylas in his epic on the Argonauts. The heroes have stopped to pitch camp, and Hylas has gone off to procure some water. The water nymphs see him, fall in love, and drag him under. Hylas screams, and Herakles hears, but the all-conquerer fails in love, arriving too late to save his precious lad. Theokritos had decided to focus the tale on the erotic intensity between the lovers. The nature of their father-son relationship is specified, and the story of the drowning told in full detail. In Theokritos, the nymphs go crazy with desire and pull Hylas down into their spring. Theokritos addresses his poem to his own boyfriend, Nikias, and it is delightful entertainment.

Propertius treats the same myth in Poem 20, and right away there is a big difference. Propertius' poem is a warning to his friend Gallus that he should keep a close eye on his cute lover, lest he lose him to rabid nymphs, as Herakles lost Hylas. The essential difference is in Propertius' depiction of Hylas. Theokritos simply makes him a youth who went to get water and was kidnapped. Propertius paints Hylas as a youth of indolence and languor--at once increasing his sexual availability and transferring a certain portion of responsibility for what happens to the boy.³⁷ Now, in addition, we also see Hylas from the nymphs' point of view; Propertius has expanded the description of Hylas to the point where we understand why the nymphs are accensae. This poem is a clear example of how Propertius saw himself in relation to his models--respectful, but he also tried to do something they hadn't.

I initially fixed on decus as the deciding quality of Propertius' world (at least in his first book). This word can sometimes be translated “grace,” sometimes “charm,” depending on context.³⁸ It seemed to me to embody the appropriate way a lover is meant to approach his beloved (created so perfectly in Vronsky's attitude to Anna in Anna Karenina). It is an attitude of respect, combined with understanding and passionate involvement. I decided on “charm” instead of “grace” for the book's title, because the latter's Christian qualities are out of place, though the grace of Nureyev is not. Charm must be seen as something not superficial, but as the appropriate and respectful, optimistic way to treat another human being.

However, the more I read this book, the more its dark side revealed itself, and I realized we're not examining polite romantic delicacy (as we sometimes do in Horace) but confronting the horrible depravity of obsession. Obsession is what this book is about. Propertius uses love as a metaphor; it can be obsession for anything--work, power, money, prestige, one's children, a wrong done one, a wrong one wishes done to another, law and order, ethnic purity, moral or artistic beliefs. Obsession is generally taken to be negative, if we adhere to the Platonic belief of “nothing in excess,” but it is often a necessary corollary of involvement, and Propertius would rather die in the name of involvement than live a life of indifference. A life without passion is a living death. As we have seen, this involvement (in Propertius' case servitude--to Cynthia, to sex [knowledge], to love poetry) leads to isolation from normality, evinced most clearly in 18 and 6. Finally, though, after wallowing in the extremes of wantonness, servility, and debasement, I realized that decus is still the key to Propertius' world, because it is (that which is most important to Cynthia) the grace of a relationship, delicate balance, that moment when two people are happy together, that allows one to have the right kind of life, allows one to write poetry.³⁹ I also like the English resonances of charm as incantation or magic, an essential feature of erotic poetry, and the linguistic link to carmina, “songs”--the name for Propertius' type of poetry--and to a concept like Valéry's Charmes.

To be Propertian is to be urban, and poetry that mirrors Propertius' can only be found in urban cultures of the magnitude of the Roman empire. This can be found in fin-de-siècle Paris and mid-20th-century New York (and sometimes London).

“I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.”⁴⁰ Many of Frank O'Hara's poems have to do with the extremities of passion and experience, fixed in an urban setting.⁴¹ This is a tendency we see clearly in Propertius (“. . . be whatever you want, just not alien.” [15] or “. . . one woman is all things to you” [13]). James Schuyler also expresses a similar sentiment vividly:

not to be in love with you
I can't remember what it was like
it must've been lousy.

There is an urban “indoors” quality in some of Propertius' poems (3, e.g.) that we find in some recent pop songs and poetry--for example, The Beatles' “I'm Only Sleeping” and “Norwegian Wood.”⁴⁴ We can see parallels for the exaltation of a powerful urban female figure, not only in pop but also in contemporary cinema, particularly Antonioni. ⁴⁵

It all adds up to an involvement with life, which can happen in the country too, but here it is a specifically urban type of embrace--of everything, the beautiful, the ugly, the vulgar. “One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes--I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.”⁴⁶

There are so many things we need to do: we need to learn about the body, the psyche, we need to have sex, travel, listen to music, read. . . A fascination with a long-dead poet who lived but few years and left a reasonable corpus--it seems almost gratuitous. Yet, there it is. I have to give credit to Douglas Messerli, who suggested I focus on one particular text, instead of the anthology I wanted to do. I also want to express my gratitude and utmost admiration to Ralph Johnson, who kindly agreed to write a foreword. Johnson's work has been seminal in pushing the study of classical literature where it needs to go--into the bright, vulgar light of the 21st century. Rachel Williams is a wonderful woman whose magnificent grasp of Latin literature (and Greek) is combined with great joie de vivre and a complete lack of pretension. Her comments, needless to say, proved invaluable. As always, I thank my wife Vivien for her acceptance of my whims, even when they prove beyond human understanding.

I became possessed by this youthful, yet stunningly perceptive, book. I found its phrases and ideas haunting me, until I became almost as paranoid as the narrator of the poems. Then, suddenly, the other day, September in New York, the summer ending, it all dissipated, and my translation became another artifact, another monument to humanity's capacity for obsession, which will last, then crumble, and fall.

New York, December, 1993

Prologue poem, addressed to Tullus

Milanion wasn't afraid of anything, Tullus,
when he crushed hard Atalanta's savagery.
He wandered mad in Parthenian caves,
face to face with hairy beasts.
Another time, shocked by a wound from Hylaeus'
stick, he groaned loudly on the Arcadian cliffs.
That's how he was able to dominate that brilliant girl:
in love, you've got to pray a lot and do a lot.

But in me Love is slow, does not stimulate any art,
and he forgets to go on ways he used to know
You who do that trick with the moon,
who perform rites on magic altars,
change my mistress' mind,
make her face more pale than my own!
Then I'll believe in you, that you can lead stars
and Medea's streams from their paths with songs.

But you, who called me too late as I was slipping, friends,
get help for the insane.
Bravely will I endure knife and savage fires,
just let me say whatever I want in my rage.
Take me to exotic peoples, across the waves,
where no woman may know my path.
You stay, to whom the god has easily consented,
stay equal always, throughout your love.
On me old Venus works bitter nights,
and Love is at no time absent.

Don't do what I do, I'm warning you. Keep to yourself,
don't move from an accustomed love.
Because if anyone should turn slow ears to my warnings,
you'll see how they'll come back to haunt him!

¹ He created the Empire, but he never called himself emperor, preferring instead the title “first citizen,” princeps--the classic text, still one of the most penetrating views on Roman culture, is Sir Ronald Syme's Roman Revolution. (Sir Ronald Syme, Roman Revolution, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1939))

²  For pioneering writing on slave economy in the Roman era, see Sir Moses Finley's Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology. (Sir Moses Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, Penguin, (1980)).

³  Mimnermos, a 7th-century B.C. poet from Asia Minor, wrote love poetry, but also managed the military material that typified the genre at the time.

⁴ 

Hor. C. 3.30

. . . ex humili potens
princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos
deduxisse modos.

⁵ It even continued at Rome (Cicero wrote the epic of his own life, when he couldn't find anyone else good enough available) until Vergil slammed a lid on it, for anyone with sense.

⁶ Gaius Cornelius Gallus (c. 69-26 B.C.), poet and general, was named first proconsul or governor of Egypt. Vanity is alluded to in an inscription; we don't know the reason, but he was removed from office and banished, whereupon he committed suicide. He may have been the first to transpose tales of lost love from mythological to contemporary Roman settings.

⁷  Vergil, however, sought something grander than love poetry, and proceeded through the more extended Georgics to develop the skill and breath to achieve his masterwork, the Aeneid.

⁸  Probably a courtesan, Cynthia was highly learned and skilled. It was typical among Roman poets to give their real-life muses Greek pseudonyms; Cynthia's real name seems to have been Hostia.

⁹  In much the same way that Roman emperors required tribute money and lip service from their subjects, Augustus required tribute of the poets in his court. It was a two way street--he gave them money and prestige, they gave him praise. Mr. Johnson's Darkness Visible has admirably revealed the cracks and murkiness in Vergil's picture of the Empire. W. R. Johnson, Darkness Visible, Berkeley: University of California Press, (1976)

¹⁰  One wonders how aware people are of this at the time. For instance, it could be that the United States reached its apex in the 1950s and '60s, or it could continue for another 50 years.

¹¹  See Syme, Roman Revolution. Julia was banished to Pandateria in 2 B.C. for adultery. On the heels of Julia's banishment, Ovid published his Ars Amatoria, a perennial sourcebook for erotic poets. In A.D. 8, Ovid too was banished, but he was sent to the Black Sea, where he spent the rest of his life. He was guilty of

duo crimina, carmen et error

Ov. Tr. 2.207

¹²  Greece was an inevitable reference point for Romans; they frequently visited Athens and other points to study and observe.

¹³  There are, on the other hand, some remarkable poems in Book IV, for instance the poem on the visitation by Cynthia's ghost, and the final poem, narrated by a deceased noblewoman.

¹⁴  Propertius has excited mainly poets, from Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso and Ronsard to Goethe.

¹⁵  Housman got a poor grade as an undergraduate at Oxford and was forced to continue his education solo; he became one of the foremost textual critics of Latin poetry.

¹⁶  He translated selected works from books II and III.

¹⁷ J.W. Mackail, Latin Literature, New York: Scribner's, (1895).

¹⁸  The earliest version of Propertius is from the 12th c. (L.D. Reynolds, N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide To The Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1991).) Many works, Propertius included, survived, miraculously, through a single example.

¹⁹  He even published a manifesto defining it: "One of its minimal aspects is to address itself to one person . . . evoking overtones of love without destroying love's life-giving vulgarity . . . I was realizing . . . I could use the telephone instead of writing the poem. . ." Frank O'Hara, ed. Donald Allen, "Personism: A Manifesto," in The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, New York: Knopf, (1971). Also see Frank Copley, Latin Literature, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, (1969) "To move from Vergil and a monumental epic like the Aeneid to the poetry of the Roman elegists is to move from the heroic to the ordinary, from the broad sweep of time to the immediate moment, from the national-imperial to the intensely personal."

²⁰  An issue which continues to plague literary criticism is the conflation of author with narrator. Jasper Griffin has written and lectured fascinatingly on Roman mores and how they appear in Augustan poetry. Jasper Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life, Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press, (1986).

²¹  I have preserved this in the translation, and I have also preserved Propertius's tensal shifts, as I believe these are not things we should blame on the Latin language, but rather credit to the particular poet, Propertius.

²² 

Don't do what I do, I'm warning you. Keep to yourself,
don't move from an accustomed love.

Prop. 1.1

You never had time for love even in your youth;
an armed nation was always your concern.
May that boy, Cupid, never visit my trials
on you, and all my well-known tears.

Prop. 1.6

²³ 

. . . you come lazily to me in my terror.
You fix yesterday's set with your hands,
examine your face in slow deliberation.

Prop. 1.15

John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "For No One," Capitol Records, (1966)

ldquo;she wakes up
she makes up
she takes her time and doesn't feel she has to hurry
she no longer needs you.

²⁴ 

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus
Let us live, Lesbia, let us love

Catul. 5

. . . inter nos laetemur amantes:
non satis est ullo tempore longus amor
Let's enjoy being lovers while we can:
Love is never long enough.

Prop. 1.19

²⁵  She is, though:

She wasn't afraid to cross the onyx threshold,
and she's not afraid, Tullus, to mount the purple couch,
riding some poor kid over every inch of that bed.

Prop. 1.14

²⁶ 

Especially when Phoebus gives you his songs,
and Calliope is liberal with the Aonian lyre.
It lacks no grace, your happy speech,
which is everything Venus, everything Minerva approves.

Prop. 1.2

At first I evaded sleep with the purple thread,
and again, exhausted, with song of the Orphic lyre.
Left all alone, I was singing lightly to myself
the frequent long delays when your lover is about.

Prop. 1.3

²⁷ 

May the neglected lover of the future read me carefully,
that knowledge of my ills may give him foresight.

Prop. 1.7

I was able to sway her not with gold, nor with Indian
conches, but with the blandishment of smooth, alluring poetry.

Prop. 1.8B

Mimnermos' poetry is worth more in love than Homer's:
mild Love seeks soft songs.

Prop. 1.9

²⁸  Thus proving his claim in 10:

I can rejoin separated lovers,
I know how to open a woman's slow doors.
I can cure any recent pain,
not light is the medicine in my words.

Prop. 1.10

²⁹  Although their affair will continue to inspire Propertius in later books.

³⁰ 

. . . yet I didn't dare disturb my mistress' quiet,
fearing the outbursts of her expert cruelty
. . . And now I take the garland from my forehead
and place it on your temples, Cynthia.
. . . I lavish all these gifts on ungrateful sleep,
gifts rubbed repeatedly against dangling breasts.
So she speaks. . . .

Prop. 1.3

³¹ Situations in Propertius are generally not dramatic. Poem 3 does present a dramatic situation, but the majority are arguments, rants.

³² 

You won't go unpunished: the girl will know your ravings
and she will be quite a vocal enemy.
. . . god, you'll be wanted on no doorstep!

Prop. 1.4

Then by force you'll learn how heavy is her bondage
. . . As a lover, your nobility will be of no use to you. . . .

Prop. 1.5

In vain you'll try to compose a subtle verse,
and laggard Love will throw down no songs to you.
Then you will not marvel so often at this “insignificant” poet.
Then I may be preferred to the other Roman talents.

Prop. 1.7

³³ 

Suffering and tears have earned me my expertise.
If only I had never touched Love and could be called ignorant!

Prop. 1.9

. . . not light is the medicine in my words.

Prop. 1.10.18

³⁴ 

I am no longer what I was: a long road changes girls.
In a scrap of time, love has flown so far!

Prop. 1.12

³⁵ Ovid's first book of elegies starts out like this:

Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam
edere, materia conveniente modis.
par erat inferior versus; risisse Cupido
dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem.
I was planning to publish war poems in a heavy
meter, the material fitting the form.
The second line was the same; Cupid laughed
and snatched away one foot.

Ov. Am. 1.1

³⁶ "In this first book he ends the pentameter freely with words of three, four, and five syllables; the monotony of the perpetual dissyllabic termination, which afterwards became the normal usage, is hardly compensated by the increased smoothness which it gives the verse." J.W. Mackail, Latin Literature, New York: Scribner's, (1895).

³⁷ 

Like a child, he'd pluck them with his delicate nail,
preferring the flower to his assigned duty.
And now, lying mindless near the beautiful water,
he prolongs his dallying with the lovely reflections.

Prop. 1.20

³⁸  In Poem 4, Cynthia's gifts are described as follows:

ingenuus color et multis decus artibus, et quae
gaudia sub tacita ducere veste libet.
. . . a natural color and skill in many arts,
the pleasures she carries under a normal dress.

Prop. 1.4

non ullo gravius temptatur Cynthia damno
quam sibi cum rapto cessat amore decus:
praecipue nostro.
Cynthia is tried by no curse more gravely
than when grace abandons her, when love has been ravaged.
Especially our love.

Prop 1.4

naturaeque decus mercato perdere cultu
You lose your natural charm with storebought sophistication. . .

Prop 1.2

³⁹ In other words, the moment when two people are equal. But observe Propertius' contradictory senses of the word: in Poem 1, Propertius condescendingly tells the normal folks to stay together:

You stay, to whom the god has easily consented,
stay equal always, throughout your love.

Prop. 1.1

. . . Shut your annoying mouth already
and let us go our course as we are, equals!

Prop 1.5

⁴⁰ Frank O'Hara, ed. Donald Allen, "Meditations In An Emergency," The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, New York: Knopf, (1971)..

⁴¹ 

Frank O'Hara, ed. Donald Allen, "Having A Coke With You," The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, New York: Knopf, (1971).:

it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles. . .
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world. . .

⁴² James Schuyler, "The Elizabethans Called It Dying," Selected Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, (1988). Another very interesting example which deserves to be better known is Joe LeSueur's book-length work, The Unmentionable, which includes gems of obsession like

you were a bastard for being so fucking good in bed

Joe LeSueur, The Unmentionable, New York: Chelsea Copy Press, (1982)

⁴³  Apollinare's famous poem "Zone" offers a similar experience.

Guillaume Apollinaire, "Zone," Selected Writings, bilingual, trans. Roger Shattuck, New York: New Directions, (1971):

J'ai vu ce matin une jolie rue dont j'ai oublié le nom
Neuve et propre du soleil elle était le clairon
Les directeurs les ouvriers et les belles sténo-dactylographes. . .
Maintenant tu marches dans Paris tout seul parmi la foule
Des troupeaux d'autobus mugissants près de toi roulent
L'angoisse de l'amour te serre le gosier
Comme si tu ne devais jamais plus être aimé. . .
Tu te moques de toi et comme le feu de l'Enfer ton rire pétille
Les étincelles de ton rire dorent le fonds de ta vie

Heading for home you start to roam then you're in town
Everybody knows there's nothing doing
Everything is closed it's like a ruin
Everyone you see is half asleep
And you're on your own you're in the street. . .
After a while you start to smile now you feel cool
Then you decide to take a walk by the old school. . .
Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I'm here
Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you're in gear
Go to a show you hope she goes
I've got nothing to say but it's O.K.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "Good Morning, Good Morning," Capitol Records, (1967)

⁴⁴ 

I once had a girl, or should I say, "She once had me"?
She showed me her room, “Isn't it good Norwegian wood?”
She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere
So I looked around, and I noticed there wasn't a chair
I sat on her rug, biding my time, drinking her wine
We talked until two, and then she said, "It's time for bed"

John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "Norwegian Wood,"

⁴⁵ 

Sexy Sadie you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see. . .
We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table
Just a smile would lighten everything
Sexy Sadie she's the latest and the greatest of them all

John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "Sexy Sadie," Apple Records, (1969)

Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there's something there
There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking, but she doesn't know he's there
I want her everywhere
And if she's beside me, I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere
Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching her eyes
And hoping I'm always there

John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "Here, There, And Everywhere," Capitol Records, 1977

funerals in Italy's hard times,
when Roman discord hunted her citizens

22

Vado anch'io verso le Terme di Caracalla,
pensando--col mio vecchio, col mio
stupendo privilegio di pensare. . .
(E a pensare in me sia ancora un dio
sperduto, debole, puerile:
ma la sua voce è così umana
ch'è quasi un canto.) Ah, uscire
da questa prigione di miseria!
Liberarsi dall'ansia che rende
cosi stupende queste notti antiche!
I too am on the way to the Caracalla Baths,
thinking with my old
stupendous privilege of thinking . . .
(And to think that a god
may still be in me,
bewildered, feeble, child-like,
but his voice so human,
almost like a song).
Ah, to escape this prison of misery!
To free oneself from the anxiety that makes
these ancient nights so stupendous!

Pier Paolo Pasolini, "I Too Am. . . ," Roman Poems, bilingual, trans. by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Francesca Valente, San Francisco: City Lights, (1986)

. . . ho passato l'infanzia schiavo di questo senso
alto, irrimediabile di un impegno immenso.
Era l'unico modo per sentire la vita,
l'unica tinta, l'unica forma: ora è finita.
. . . I spent my childhood a slave to this lofty,
incurable sense of immense commitment.
It was the only way to feel life,
its only color, its only form: now it's over.

Pier Paolo Pasolini, "Prayer To My Mother," Roman Poems, bilingual, trans. by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Francesca Valente, San Francisco: City Lights, (1986)

I am a slave not so much to genius as to suffering,
complaining the hard times of my youth.
This is how my life's used up, this my fame,
this is what I want my poetry known for.

Prop. 1.7

⁴⁶ Frank O'Hara, ed. Donald Allen, "Meditations," The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, New York: Knopf, (1971).

⁴⁷ See poems 6, 14, and 22.

MILANION

successful suitor of Atalanta.

ATALANTA

skilled hunter who lived in Arcadia, extremely swift of foot. According to the well-known version (not mentioned by P.), Atalanta challenges her suitors to a race; whoever should first defeat her gets to marry her. Milanion wins by dropping some golden apples in the path, which Atalanta cannot resist stopping to pick up.

HYLAEUS

a centaur who attacked Atalanta.

MEDEA'S STREAMS

Medea was a sorcerer from Cytaea in Colchis, on the Black Sea.

Cross references from Sulpicia, Carmina Omnia (ed. Anne Mahoney):
* [Introduction to the notes]

Cross references from Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898):
flabellum [Flabellum]
propertius [Propertius, Sextus]
* [Lesson in Trigon. (From the Baths of Titus.)]
* [The Lectus Funebris. (Lateran Museum, Rome.)]
* [The Lectus Funebris. (Lateran Museum, Rome.)]
propertius [Propertius, Sextus]
* [Vergil Reading to Maecenas. (Painting by Jalabert.)]
propertius [Propertius, Sextus]

This text is based on the following book(s):
Propertius. Charm. Vincent Katz. trans. Los Angeles. Sun & Moon Press. 1995.
ISBN: 1557132240

Buy a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com.