In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Elegia i.3 PROPERTIUS Translated by Steven J.Willett Just as she lay when Theseus’ keel was sliding seaward, the Cnossian maid languid on the desolate shore; just as Cepheus’ daughter reclined in her first slumber, Andromeda, now freed from jagged rocks; just as the Thracian bacchant, weary from incessant dancing, slumps on the grassy bank of the Apidanus; even so Cynthia seemed to breathe a soft repose, her head (...) pillowed on open unruly hands, when I came dragging footsteps wobbly with too much wine, the boys waving burnt-out torches in the late night. Against her I tried, not all my senses utterly derelict, to advance gently on the compliant couch; and, though seized by a double ardor—each was commanding me, love here and wine there, both implacable gods— to assault her by slipping my arm lightly beneath her body and with a hand advanced take kisses and arms, yet I lacked the courage to shatter my mistress’ repose, fearing the brawls whose savagery I’d tasted; so I remained standing there motionless with rapt eyes, like Argus at the strange sight of Io’s horns. And now I was untying the garlands from my forehead and placing them, Cynthia, around your temples; and now I was finding it pleasant to smooth your fallen tresses; then I was giving you stolen apples in hollow palms; but I was lavishing all these gifts on ungrateful sleep, gifts that often tumbled from your sloping lap; and every time you heaved a sigh stirring fitfully, arion 28.2 fall 2020 98 elegia 1.3 I froze, foolishly credulous of an empty sign, fearful that some dream was bringing you strange terrors, or some man was forcing you reluctantly to be his: until the moon drifting across the opposite windows, the meddling moon whose eyes incline to linger, drew her closely-lidded eyes open under its delicate beams. Then, her elbow propped on the soft couch, she asked: “Has another’s rejection finally brought you back to my bed, chucked out with the doors slammed in your face? Where have you squandered the long hours of my night, languid, alas for me, as the stars are waning? Oh, I pray that you may endure, you beast, such nights as you are always making poor me to suffer! Just now I was cheating sleep with purple yarn at the loom, and then, exhausted, with song on Orpheus’ lyre; and sometimes, quite desolate, I softly complained to myself of the long waits your outside loves often cost me. Till sleep with gentle wings brushed me down to oblivion. That was the last concern of all my tears.”... (shrink)

Cynthia's apparition is upbraiding Propertius ior having forgotten her so soon. In spite of their former love, he had not been present at her death, and, because of his neglect, her funeral had been a mean affair, lacking not merely any signs of affection, but any semblance of ordinary decent feeling. In a succession of couplets tracing the regular stages of a Roman funeral from the deathbed to the final rites of the cremation, this lack of respect and affection (...) is particularized: no loving voice had been heard in her dying moments ; her body had been laid out to await the funeral with little thought for what was seemly at such a time ; on the day of the funeral Propertius had not put on mourning or shown signs of grief ; the funeral procession had moved with indecorous haste to the city gate ; Propertius had not been present at the cremation, and no perfumes had been poured on the flames ; no customary final offerings had been made to the ashes. (shrink)

Université libre de BruxellesThe vulgate text at Prop. 3.10.17–18 reads as follows: et pete, qua polles, ut sit tibi forma perennis inque meum semper stent tua regna caput. 17–18 om. N 17 polles T, uulgo: pelles FLP.

The most recent commentator on this line, D. R. Shackleton Bailey, states that ‘spiritus is breath rather than odour’ and he has the support of some commentators, Marcilius, for example, who amends notus to motus, and Hertzberg, who takes it as sweet breath, citing Mart. 3. 65. 1. So also most translators : an exception is D. Paganelli who translates ‘aucun souffle, aucune odeur d'adultère’. However, the parallels cited by Shackleton Bailey are irrelevant to this situation: Afranius 243, Ach. Tat. (...) 2. 37. 9, and Claud. Carm. Min. 29. 33 all refer to the period just before, during, or immediately after the sexual act. It is most unlikely that this is the case in Propertius' poem. Propertius has come to see if Cynthia has spent the night alone; it is not a question of catching her inflagrante delicto, but of finding some rival there or the evidence of his stay not yet removed. Cynthia is indignant at her lover's suspicions and lest he should think that his rival had left earlier, she coarsely specifies the evidence that Propertius might expect to find, including spiritus admisso notus adulterio. (shrink)

The most recent commentator on this line, D. R. Shackleton Bailey, states that ‘spiritus is breath rather than odour’ and he has the support of some commentators, Marcilius, for example, who amends notus to motus, and Hertzberg, who takes it as sweet breath, citing Mart. 3. 65. 1. So also most translators : an exception is D. Paganelli who translates ‘aucun souffle, aucune odeur d'adultère’. However, the parallels cited by Shackleton Bailey are irrelevant to this situation: Afranius 243, Ach. Tat. (...) 2. 37. 9, and Claud. Carm. Min. 29. 33 all refer to the period just before, during, or immediately after the sexual act. It is most unlikely that this is the case in Propertius' poem. Propertius has come to see if Cynthia has spent the night alone; it is not a question of catching her inflagrante delicto, but of finding some rival there or the evidence of his stay not yet removed. Cynthia is indignant at her lover's suspicions and lest he should think that his rival had left earlier, she coarsely specifies the evidence that Propertius might expect to find, including spiritus admisso notus adulterio. (shrink)

Between the first eight lines of Propertius 3.7, addressed to ‘pecunia’, and the lover's farewell couplet to Aquilo, the narration of Paetus′ shipwreck and death has first bewildered and then inspired generations of readers either to defend the basic order of verses given in the manuscripts or to create a more satisfactory arrangement through transposition. To some, the inherited poem presents a catastrophe equal to Paetus′ own dismemberment: Aquilo blew the pages around, a scribe playing Neptune took pleasure in (...) his own power to change, while the uncontrollable seas of error scattered couplets far and wide and altered the shape of words and letters. To others, the textual problems of 3.7 can be explained with appeals to parallels or to Propertius′ stylistic intentions. (shrink)

Professor Cairns has suggested that the use of modo in Propertius 1.1.11, which has long been seen as problematic, can be understood in terms of some instances of the Greek modo, he says, here means not but , and the modo clause is prior in time to the clause that follows it just as, in his view, a Greek imperfect with can have the force of a pluperfect and refer to a time prior to that of the verb of (...) a following clause. (shrink)

Professor Cairns has suggested that the use of modo in Propertius 1.1.11, which has long been seen as problematic, can be understood in terms of some instances of the Greek modo, he says, here means not but, and the modo clause is prior in time to the clause that follows it just as, in his view, a Greek imperfect with can have the force of a pluperfect and refer to a time prior to that of the verb of a (...) following clause. (shrink)

Line 2 has puzzled editors: ‘The significance of the name is beyond knowledge’ ; ‘Hie versus inter difHcillimos Properti est’ . It should mean, ‘a door known to the chastity of Tarpeia’, i.e. ‘known to Tarpeia when she was still chaste‘, i.e. ‘known to Tarpeia as a girl’; and I suggest it means just that.

Most modern editors adopt one or other of two readings: quot gradibus domus ista Remi se sustulit! olim / unus erat etc.; qua gradibus domus ista Remi se sustulit, olim / unus erat etc. It is true that a large number of steps leading up to a temple is an indicationof its magnificence; cf. Ovid, Pont. 3. 2. 49 f. templa manent hodie vastis innixa columnis, / perque quater denos itur in ilia gradus. Nevertheless in this context qua is more (...) probable than quot, in view of the local relative clauses in line 1 and line 3. (shrink)

Most modern editors adopt one or other of two readings: quot gradibus domus ista Remi se sustulit! olim / unus erat etc.; qua gradibus domus ista Remi se sustulit, olim / unus erat etc. It is true that a large number of steps leading up to a temple is an indicationof its magnificence; cf. Ovid, Pont. 3. 2. 49 f. templa manent hodie vastis innixa columnis, / perque quater denos itur in ilia gradus. Nevertheless in this context qua is more (...) probable than quot, in view of the local relative clauses in line 1 and line 3. (shrink)

This is our well received text of Propertius' celebrated address to the shades of Callimachus and Philitas at 3.1.1–2: Callimachi Manes et Coi sacra Philitae, in vestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus. Well received it may be, but scholarly worries and disagreements about the precise meaning of sacra, and indeed about the real purpose of the address, perhaps have diverted editors' eyes from a possible corruption. I would like to suggest that the pairing of ethnic adjective and personal name, (...) Coi and Philitae, in line 1 may not be Propertian. (shrink)

At 3.9.37–8, Propertius says that he will not bewail the destruction of Thebes by the Epigonoi or the earlier assault on the city by the Seven: non flebo in cineres arcem sedisse paternos Cadmi, nee septem proelia clade pari. That nec…pari in 38 refers to the Seven, with Lipsius' septem for the manuscripts' semper, J. D. Morgan demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt in his discussion of the couplet in CQ 36 , 186–8. But Morgan's chief concern in that discussion was (...) with paternos at the end of 37, and it is his treatment of that adjective which prompts this note. (shrink)

Towards the start of the elegy which prefaces his third book, Propertius rejects lengthy, martial epic in favour of slender poetry : it is on account of the latter that fame elevates him above the earth, his Muse triumphant ; accompanying him in the triumphal chariot are his Amores , and following the wheels is a crowd of writers . The latter, in the race for glory, rival the poet to no purpose . Many writers will praise Rome and (...) sing of future conquests , but Propertius’ pages, a special delivery from the Muses' mount, are the perfect peace-time reading. (shrink)

All editors and translators of Propertius seem convinced that the Roman poet has endowed the horse Arion with the power of speech. I present a few sample translations of the two lines.

To the host of suggestions I would add the sense of the passage is, ‘I have never annoyed you with petulant language, with the things the mob in the heated forum is accustomed to say, that you suffer me to… But I have often…’ His was, as line 41 explains, the language of poetry. The contrast between the language of the forum and poetry is an obvious one, and is made elsewhere by Propertius ‘turn tibi pauca suo de carmine (...) dictat Apollo et vetat insano verba tonare foro. at tu finge elegos’ . In the present passage the contrast is between the common language typical of the angry mob and the original verses of the exclusus amator. It is particularly bitter that he should be condemned to the ‘trivio’ which, like the forum, is the very milieu of the type of language he has eschewed. (shrink)

When Propertius tells Cynthia in 2. 29A that, on his drunken way to another woman the previous night, he was seized and hauled back to Cynthia by a band of Cupids, it is fairly clear that the poet is giving dramatic embodiment to the erotic commonplace that the lover fired by wine is unable to stay away from his mistress but is dragged back to her perforce by love. The nature of the drama in which the topos is embodied (...) is, however, not at all clear. Most commentators have seen it as nothing more than a fantasy or fairy-tale having no connection whatsoever with real life. Two, while recognizing that elements of fantasy are present, nevertheless have felt that the action of the drama is derived from real life with the Cupids playing a real-life role. I believe that those who have seen 2. 29A as merely fantasy are incorrect. This is not to say that pure fantasy does not occur in Propertius’ work. But when it does it takes place in a dream or fantasy landscape. In 2. 29A the scene is the streets of Rome and this realistic setting suggests that, as in another realistic setting Propertius although giving rein to his fantasy links it with reality by taking on himself the role of triumphator, so here it is more likely that the characters in a drama with a real setting will have real-life roles to play. (shrink)

When Propertius tells Cynthia in 2. 29A that, on his drunken way to another woman the previous night, he was seized and hauled back to Cynthia by a band of Cupids, it is fairly clear that the poet is giving dramatic embodiment to the erotic commonplace that the lover fired by wine is unable to stay away from his mistress but is dragged back to her perforce by love. The nature of the drama in which the topos is embodied (...) is, however, not at all clear. Most commentators have seen it as nothing more than a fantasy or fairy-tale having no connection whatsoever with real life. Two, while recognizing that elements of fantasy are present, nevertheless have felt that the action of the drama is derived from real life with the Cupids playing a real-life role. I believe that those who have seen 2. 29A as merely fantasy are incorrect. This is not to say that pure fantasy does not occur in Propertius’ work. But when it does it takes place in a dream or fantasy landscape. In 2. 29A the scene is the streets of Rome and this realistic setting suggests that, as in another realistic setting Propertius although giving rein to his fantasy links it with reality by taking on himself the role of triumphator, so here it is more likely that the characters in a drama with a real setting will have real-life roles to play. (shrink)

When Propertius tells Cynthia in 2. 29A that, on his drunken way to another woman the previous night, he was seized and hauled back to Cynthia by a band of Cupids, it is fairly clear that the poet is giving dramatic embodiment to the erotic commonplace that the lover fired by wine is unable to stay away from his mistress but is dragged back to her perforce by love.The nature of the drama in which the topos is embodied is, (...) however, not at all clear. Most commentators have seen it as nothing more than a fantasy or fairy-tale having no connection whatsoever with real life. Two, while recognizing that elements of fantasy are present, nevertheless have felt that the action of the drama is derived from real life with the Cupids playing a real-life role.I believe that those who have seen 2. 29A as merely fantasy are incorrect. This is not to say that pure fantasy does not occur in Propertius’ work. But when it does it takes place in a dream or fantasy landscape. In 2. 29A the scene is the streets of Rome and this realistic setting suggests that, as in another realistic setting Propertius although giving rein to his fantasy links it with reality by taking on himself the role of triumphator, so here it is more likely that the characters in a drama with a real setting will have real-life roles to play. (shrink)