Sextus Propertius Elegies Transl
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Sextus Propertius Elegies translated by Colin John Holcombe Ocaso Press 2009 Sextus Propertius: Elegies a new translation by Colin John Holcombe © Ocaso Press 2009 Last revised: March 2019 Published by Ocaso Press Ltda. Santiago, Chile. All rights reserved. Copyright applies to this work, but you are most welcome to download, read and distribute the material as a pdf ebook. You are not permitted to modify the ebook, claim it as your own, sell it on, or to financially profit in any way from its distribution. Contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Translation Book One 1. Love’s Madness 9 2. Beauty Unadorned 13 3. After a Night’s Drinking 15 4. Rebuke to Bassus 19 5. Warning to a Rival 21 6. An Invitation Declined 23 7. To an Epic Poet 27 8A. Cynthia Plans to Go Abroad 29 8B. Cynthia Changes her Mind 31 9. A Warning Come True 33 10. Gallus in Love 37 11. Cynthia at Baiae 39 12. Cynthia Absent 41 13. Gallus Succumbs 43 14. Love and Money 47 15. Cynthia Slow to Visit 49 16. The Door’s Complaint 53 17. A Storm at Sea 57 18. The Poet in Solitude 59 19. Facing Death 61 20. Hercules and Hylas 63 21. A Dead Kinsman Speaks 67 22. The Poet’s Birthplace 69 Book Two 1. The Task 71 2. A Description of Cynthia 77 3. Enslaved Again 79 4. The Miseries of Love 83 5. Cynthia’s Wantonness 85 6. Unwanted Influences 87 7. A Law Withdrawn 89 8. Robbed 93 9A. Not Another Penelope 97 9B. Fighting for Cynthia 101 10. Praise of Augustus 103 11. To Cynthia: a warning 105 12. Picture of Love 107 13. Foreseeing his Funeral 109 14. The Poet’s Triumph 113 15. Love’s Ecstasy 115 16. Praetor back from Illyria 119 18A. Young Love Rebuffed 123 18B. Painted Cheeks 125 19. Cynthia in the Country 127 20. Faithful for Ever 129 21. Panthus dupes Cynthia 133 22. One Girl is Not Enough 135 17. A Night Denied 139 23. In Praise of Call-Girls 141 24. Everlasting Fidelity 145 25. Love’s Frustrations 149 26A. A Dream of Cynthia 153 26B. A Man of Consequence 155 26C. A Voyage 157 27. Return from the Dead 159 28. Cynthia Ill 161 29A. A Fantasy 165 29B. An Early Morning Visit 167 30A. Inescapable Love 169 30B. Live with me 171 31-2. Cynthia’s Infidelities 173 33A. Isis 179 33B. More Wine 181 33C. Absence 183 34. To Lynceus 185 Book Three 1. Invocation 191 2. Power of Song 195 3. Poet’s Vision 197 4. Indian War 201 5. God of Peace 203 6. Plea to Slave Lygdamus 207 7. Elegy for Paetus 211 8. Lamp-lit Brawl 217 9. Maecenas 221 10. Cynthia’s Birthday 225 11. Female Power 229 12. Gallas's Fidelity 235 13. Noble Savages 239 14. Admiration for Sparta 245 15. Story of Dirce 247 16. Midnight Summons 251 17. Homage to Bacchus 253 18. Elegy for Marcellus 257 19. Women’s Lust 259 20. Love Contract 261 21. Only Remedy 263 22. In Praise of Italy 265 23. Lost Tablets 269 24. Farewell to Cynthia 271 Book Four 1. Early Rome 275 1B. The Poet’s Horoscope 281 2. Vertumnus 287 3. A Husband at the Wars 293 4. Tarpeia 299 5. Acanthis 305 6. Actium 311 7. Cynthia’s Ghost 317 8. An Unwelcome Interruption 323 9. Ara Maxima 329 10. Feretrian Jupiter 335 11. Cornelia 339 3. Glossary 347 5. References and Resources 422 THE ELEGIES OF SEXTUS PROPERTIUS 1 INTRODUCTION Sextus Propertius was born around 50 BC, probably near Assisi in Umbria, and seems to have been dead by 2 BC. 1 His family were well-to-do farmers who lost land after the Perusine War, but neither the confiscation of estates nor the early death of Propertius’s father reduced its equestrian standing. Money was found to send the young man to study law in Rome, where he won a literary reputation with startling ease. His first collection of Elegies was published in 29 or 28 BC, 2 when the poet was still in his early twenties, and brought something new to Latin literature: a slavish subjection to love expressed in vivid elegiac couplets that no one has bettered. 3 Catullus was more intense and personal, but published only short pieces in the metre. Tibullus was more continuously graceful, but seems over-refined when set against the turbulent moods that Propertius depicts in his love affair with Cynthia. That inspiration we cannot fully know. 4 Apuleius identified the model as Hostia, a vivacious demi-monde, which there is no reason to doubt, but Cynthia is also a literary stalking-horse, a persona Propertius created to explore the many facets of romantic infatuation. By turns, the lover is tender, ecstatic, despairing, worldly-wise, self-pitying and importunate. Cynthia is just as various, everything from the warmed-hearted and cultivated lover to the calculating hussy. Anyone who has been in love will recognize these shifting fictions of the heart, which are a tribute to what poets have created from the emotional turmoil of our lives, and where the Latin elegists played a large part. Marriage for traditional Romans was a duty, and while couples could marry for love, most unions were contracted for social, financial and political advancement. 5 Upper-class young men were encouraged to indulge their passions with courtesans or women in approved brothels before settling down to the serious business of life, which was service in the army, the law courts or public affairs. Upper-class women enjoyed no such licence: they managed the home, brought up the children and found recreation in spinning wool to make their husband’s clothes. As Rome conquered the east, however, the city absorbed more cosmopolitan attitudes, becoming addicted to luxury and pleasurable living. As a social contract, marriage 2 could be ended quickly, and wealthy couples frequently found themselves new spouses. More independent women also took lovers, sometimes multiple lovers, changing them as the whim took them. Among the most notorious was Clodia, wife of Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer, with whom Catullus fell in love and addressed as Lesbia in his poems. Men were even freer: affairs attracted little attention if matters were kept within bounds, and it was understood that young entertainers of both sexes at discreet musical evenings offered more of their body than singing or musical skills. Naturally, such goings-on were not a tribute to the self-denying Roman fortitude of old, and the Emperor Augustus, by no means innocent himself, tried to inculcate more family values, first by encouragement and then by legislation. Offenders were punished, and even the well-placed and popular Ovid was exiled to the Black Sea for some unknown but egregious misdemeanour. For some fifty years the Latin elegists fought back, arguing a case for an alternative morality, one based on feelings more than social standing or material gains. Catullus expected love to last a lifetime, forlorn hope though that was with the rapacious Clodia. Propertius went further, and made himself a slave to love — something bewildering to the average Roman. Horace found this absurd and distasteful. Ovid pulled fun at its earnestness. Propertius himself soon came up against the realities of urban life. The Cynthia of the Elegies has a sharp eye for the main chance: all very well to be showered with verses but money and social connections were what really counted. Propertius persists, finding examples from mythology to excuse the unfortunate errings of his beloved. He sees himself bound in traditional military service, though now to Venus, reporting back with advice for others conscripted. He draws from the classics, finding the gods and heroes too had their setbacks and humiliations. He pays the obligatory tributes to contemporaries, to Maecenas and Augustus, but still in Book Three is arguing that his achievements are real, and not to be diverted into Rome- glorifying epics. Book Four brings the inevitable, and under the stern eye of the emperor, Propertius starts making amends. He burnishes the reputations of Roman heroes. He explores the etymology of Roman names and landmarks. For Cynthia he continues to feel an irresistible attraction but in the end allows her to go her own way, a fading jewel in the tawdry setting of mercenary 3 sex. His last elegy praises the faithful devotion of a chaste wife, as faithful to her husband’s name as he had been to his romantic ideals. Are the Elegies sincere, representing real attitudes and experience? Propertius was following an established tradition that need only broadly correspond with life, but to recite poetry about a non-existent mistress, or about a mistress without Cynthia’s charms, was to invite ridicule. Upper- class Rome was tightly knit, and its members would expect to find in the Elegies something of their own lives and attitudes. Cynthia was simply being professional, moreover. Had the demi-monde forgotten her training and become the doting partner there would have been scant material for the emotional range of the Elegies: all would have gone smoothly. Conversely, had Cynthia really been as portrayed, then the high-flown flattery and continual importuning of Propertius would have been intolerable, driving the poor woman to her wits’ end. Friends would have pointed this out, even had their author hoped to continue in his blindness. In short, some awareness of his extravagance we have to grant Propertius: to take all the Elegies entirely at their face value not only defies common sense but detracts from our opinion of the man, and how we respond to his words.