1.1.19–24

Propertius turns to witches to help him win round Cynthia. Numerous scholars have questioned amnes (23), since amnes ducere is a perfectly normal expression for ‘directing a stream’ (e.g. Plin. NH 33.75), which is ‘one of the commonest operations of Italian agriculture’.Footnote ² Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007a) and Fedeli (Reference Fedeli2021) print Jeverus’ umbras, but Housman more convincingly proposed manes, noting that ‘the two words are much confounded’.Footnote ³ Yet difficulties arise from the resulting word order: not only is it considerably different from the paradosis but the sequence et manes et sidera is weak, since ‘the trick of bringing down the moon’ has already been mentioned in 19 and we expect the more spectacular and hitherto unmentioned feat of raising the dead to be listed second. These difficulties can be avoided if we print:

ut and et are frequently confused (e.g. 1.2.11-12), and the use of ut is not essentially different from ut prius in line 18 above or 3.8.14 ‘Maenas ut icta’. ut sidera not only looks back to deductae…fallacia lunae in 19 but has the advantage of allowing the emphasis to fall on the more impressive of the two feats. It may well be that Tibullus had 1.1.19-24 in mind when he too introduced witches into his poetry (1.2.45-8):

This passage in its turn seems indebted to lines 97-9 of Eclogue 8 (cf. ‘ego…animas imis excire sepulcris…uidi’), a poem to which Propertius himself had alluded earlier at 1.1.4-6 (Amor…docuit… improbus ∼ Ecl. 8.47-50 ‘Amor docuit…improbus…improbus’).

1.2.9-14

Propertius is adducing examples from nature to dissuade Cynthia from beautifying herself. There are two principal difficulties. (a) The transmitted humus formosa has been widely queried on the ground that formosius appears only two lines below; moreover, if anything is to be described as ‘attractive’, it is not the earth but the variegated plants and flowers which the earth produces. The point of the line is that the earth requires no human attention to be productive: hence Allen’s non fossa (printed in the OCT). But ferme ipsa is closer to the paradosis: ‘Look at the colours which the earth generally puts forth by itself’ (OLD submitto 3a, fere 3a, ipse 7). ipsa is well paralleled at Virg. Ecl. 4.21-3, where it is twice used thus in successive sentences. Admittedly the form ferme is not used elsewhere by Propertius (nor by Catullus or other Augustan poets), but it is 5× in Lucretius, whom Propertius imitates quite often.

(b) Line 13 has been subjected to very many emendations and is discussed by Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007b) 12-13. persuadent makes little or no sense. Many scholars favour a verb such as praelucent (‘beaches picked out with their natural stones shine forth’), but one expects a comparison (cf. Hor. Epi. 1.1.83 ‘nullus in orbe sinus Bais praelucet amoenis’). La Penna and Helmbold came up with praestant sua independently of each other; but not only is sua extremely awkward and a seeming repetition of natiuis but praestant, like Housman’s clever superant depicta lapillis, lacks a comparandum: it is very difficult to imagine in either case that Propertius wants the reader to understand ‘…are superior <to shore-houses with their mosaics>’, notorious though such houses were. On the other hand, clarity would result if praestant or superant were combined with an object such as sŏla: ‘litora natiuis superant sola picta lapillis’, ‘beaches with their natural <stones> outclass floors decorated with stones’. Pebble beaches are more attractive than mosaic floors. sola picta reappears at Prud. Symm. 2.252, an author who may have been influenced by Propertius elsewhere.Footnote ⁴ The proposed dual meaning of lapillis as pebbles and mosaics (for the latter see Hor. Epi. 1.10.19) is a form of syllepsis.

1.4.9-10

Cynthia would make the famous beauties of mythology seem insignificant; still less would she be judged inferior if she were compared with unimportant girls. duro is odd. Camps explains that it is said ‘from the loser’s point of view’, but this is very convoluted, since the viewpoint of the couplet as a whole is not that of the loser. Goold renders ‘even by a fastidious judge’, but there is no ‘even’ in the Latin and durus does not mean ‘fastidious’. Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007a) suggests, but does not print, iusto; perhaps better is uero, ‘honest’ (OLD 9b), a regular epithet for iudex (Cic. Rosc. Am. 84, Sen. Contr. 7.1.5, Tac. D. 35.5).

1.10.3-10

Although uidimus (6) clearly says that Propertius has been indulging in voyeurism, watching Gallus and his girlfriend in bed, many scholars believe that this is not the case and that Propertius is referring to an erotic episode which he has been reading in the poetry of Cornelius Gallus.Footnote ⁵ Although a major problem with this theory is that the addressee cannot be the poet Gallus,Footnote ⁶ there are other difficulties too. Line 4 is very hard to reconcile with a non-literary interpretation of uidimus: if Propertius had wanted to refresh his memory of the episode, all he had to do was look up the description in a book of Gallus’ verses. Line 7 does not make good sense if uidimus is a reference to Gallus’ poetry: it seems no compliment to Gallus’ verses if Propertius says that he was in danger of falling asleep. It is difficult to see how the Moon’s embarrassment can be reconciled with the theory that Propertius has merely been reading Gallus’ poetry. Since he will have been reading silently to himself, like the girl waiting for her boyfriend at 3.3.19-20, the Moon could not hear him,Footnote ⁷ and in any case the Moon is associated above all with witnessing, not eavesdropping: she is the νυκτὸς ὀφθαλμός (Aesch. Sept. 390).Footnote ⁸ The Moon is blushing not because she overheard Gallus’ verses being read aloud by a third party but precisely because, being conventionally modest (Priapea 66.1-2), she witnessed the proceedings (cf. Hor. S. 1.8.35-6 ‘Lunamque rubentem | ne foret his testis’ with Gowers (Reference Gowers2012) ad loc.).Footnote ⁹ Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007b: 49) supports the view of Sharrock (Reference Sharrock1990) and says of line 10 that ‘alternis evokes the alternating structure of the elegiac couplet: the night of voyeurism is also the image of a night spent reading Gallus’, but, although Sharrock produces several examples of the adjective alternus applied to the elegiac couplet, she quotes no parallel for uox meaning ‘line of verse’. alternis uocibus means what the same words mean at Liv. 3.15.6 ‘alternae uoces “ad arma” et “hostes in urbe sunt” audiebantur’ (so too Ov. Met. 3.385).

If, then, it is more plausible to interpret the passage simply as an account of voyeurism, lusu (9) seems anticlimactic after morientem (5), which refers to orgasm.Footnote ¹⁰ What we expect after the references in 7-8 to the poet’s drooping eyes and the embarrassment of the lunar witness is uisu (‘nevertheless I could not withdraw from the sight of you both’), picking up uidimus in line 6. Line 10 is not an argument against.

1.13.13-14

Propertius is assuring Gallus that he has seen him in the arms of a beloved girl. Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007b: 61) points out that haec is doubtful: the two preceding couplets have each begun with haec, but there the pronoun is fem. sing. and refers to the girl; it is impossibly confusing if we seem to be presented with a triple anaphora in which the third haec is acc. plur. and has a different reference altogether. Heyworth notes also that ego too is doubtful: not only is it omitted in N but ‘it dissipates the effect of ego in the subsequent uidi ego’. Heyworth – modifying Baehrens’ haec cano non, which is adopted by Fedeli (Reference Fedeli2021) – prints quae canŏ non, which involves a short final –o (almost unparalleled in Propertius). More plausible, I suggest, is a word such as certus or falsus or monitus, parallel to doctus; but where the word is to be fitted into the line is debatable. Since Propertius likes anaphoric non to begin a line (e.g. 1.5.11 ‘non tibi iam somnos, non illa relinquet ocellos’, 1.6.29, 2.1.3, 2.1.19, etc.), albeit not invariably, perhaps we should read e.g.:

2.1.15-16

Propertius ends his list of his girl’s attributes by referring to her doings and sayings. It is not clear whether line 16 is a generalisation, but, even if it is, it has to be applicable to the girl. One difficulty with the phrase de nihilo is that the girl’s attributes are not ‘nothing’, as pointed out by, for example, Butrica when arguing that the lines should be deleted.Footnote ¹¹ Another difficulty is that, although de nihilo can mean ‘from nothing’ (as often in Lucretius), Propertius elsewhere uses the phrase with the different meaning of ‘without reason’ (2.3a.16, 2.16.52). It is of course true that the same phrase need not always have the same meaning, but de minimo would produce a tempting allusion to the power of rhetoric, which is conventionally described as making small things great (e.g. [Plut.] Vitae Dec. Orat. 838F τὰ μὲν μικρὰ μεγάλα τὰ δὲ μεγάλα μικρὰ ποιεῖν). Propertius may even be making the further point that his girl’s ‘biography’ – a genre which, unlike history, is conventionally associated with trivial doings and sayings (Plut. Alex. 1.2 πρᾶγμα βραχὺ πολλάκις καὶ ῥῆμα) – can be transformed by him into proper ‘history’.

2.1.57-8

Since it is not true that ‘medicine cures all human pain’, the contrast between the two lines is rhetorically ineffective. We need a word like saepius or corporis instead of omnis.

3.1.1-6

These famous opening lines pose two problems, one recognised, one less so. (a) Remarking that the interpretation of sacra (1) has presented serious problems to Propertian scholars, Fedeli (Reference Fedeli1985) has a long note in which he explains and assesses the numerous meanings which have been attributed to the word and the various ways in which it has been combined with others to produce meaning, himself agreeing with those who think that the line means ‘Shades and poetry of Callimachus and Philetas’. Heyworth/Morwood (Reference Heyworth and Morwood2011) say that sacra means literally ‘sacred rites’ but that the word really means ‘poetry’ (they refer to OLD sacrum 3e). The difficulty with all such interpretations is that we expect a word that is of the same order as Manes, that can be used of an addressee in the vocative, and that coheres with uestrum…nemus (2), which from the context seems intended to suggest ‘grove of the dead’ (as at Juv. 3.13). The obvious word is umbra, which, since it does not scan, requires substantial alteration elsewhere in the line, as Fontein’s attempts indicate. Kämmerer’s proposal is attractive: et is often postponed in Propertius and other elegists, and simulacra, regularly found as a plural for singular (OLD 4b), might easily have been corrupted into sacra by abbreviation (e.g. słacra). There seems no need to eliminate the genitive, however; ‘Shade of Callimachus and ghost of Coan Philetas’ makes good sense.

(b) The logic of the first six lines is surely very odd as transmitted. In 1-2 the poet directs an address to Callimachus and Philetas and pleads to enter their grove, which in 3-4 he appears already to be entering; but it next turns out that the poet cannot identify the right grove, and he has to resort to a second imperative and ask his addressees which grove is theirs (5-6).Footnote ¹² How can the poet be entering the grove if he does not know where it is? I suggest that this is one of the numerous places in Propertius where lines have been transposed and that Propertius originally wrote as follows:

It will not be denied that formally the imperative dicite follows much more naturally after sinite and its twin vocatives, rather than after the interruption of the first-person ingredior, and logically it is better for the poet to identify the grove before announcing his entrance into it. It may be objected that primus ego ingredior does not in fact refer to Propertius’ entering the grove but means ‘I am the first to begin to carry…’ (so Heyworth/Morwood ad loc.), and that therefore the alleged illogicality is non-existent; but after in uestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus it is virtually impossible not to understand primus ego ingredior as ‘I am the first to enter’, which is indeed how Goold translates it. Besides, although inceptive expressions are commonly pleonastic, ‘I am the first to begin to carry’ seems almost banal and is quite unsuited to the context: Camps and others are surely right to take ferre as an infinitive of purpose, a construction which is regular after a verb of motion and one of which Propertius is fond.Footnote ¹³ Although it cannot be adduced as a decisive argument in favour of the transposition, it so happens that the allusions to Georgics 3 are now in the same order as they are found in Virgil: carmen tenuastis ∼ G. 3.3 tenuissent carmine, primus ego ∼ G. 3.10 primus ego. The lines mean: ‘Shade of Callimachus and ghost of Coan Philitas, allow me, I pray, to come into your grove. Tell me, in what glade did both of you spin your song? With what foot did you enter? What water did you drink? I am the first to enter there as a priest to bear from a pure spring amidst Greek dances Italian emblems.’ We have to imagine a pause between lines 6 and 3 to allow time for Propertius to receive an answer to the questions of 5-6, and ingredior in 3 is probably to be read as having a future aspect, as often with first-person verbs.Footnote ¹⁴ The polyptoton ingressi ∼ ingredior is the kind of repetition one expects in an antiphonal context.

3.3.47-50

The Muse says that Propertius’ verse will not be epic but will include komastic scenes. Heyworth demonstrates that the transmitted fugae is unacceptable,Footnote ¹⁵ but can we do better than his own suggestion, morae, which is printed by Goold? The lyre and lyre-like instruments ‘played a large role in…the komos’, as demonstrated by the numerous references assembled by Cummings:Footnote ¹⁶ a good example is C. 3.26.3-4, where Horace hangs up his lyre to indicate that his life as a komastic lover is over.Footnote ¹⁷ We might therefore consider lyrae (‘and you will sing of the drunken indications given by the night-time lyre’); signum is here being used to mean ‘Something perceived by the mind or senses from which an inference may be drawn’ (OLD 4a): when the girl hears the lyre, she knows she is wanted outside; this leads particularly well into excantare (‘charm forth’) in line 49.

3.11.5-6

Line 5 has been much emended, but uulneribus in line 6 perhaps suggests that all that is missing is an ablative noun: ‘uent<is uent>uram praesagit nauita mortem’ (‘from the winds the sailor has foreknowledge of his approaching death’). Parablepsy may have caused the elimination of uentis, a gap which was then filled by the unnecessary melius; plays on uentus and uenturus recur elsewhere (Germ. fr. 3-4.153-4, Sen. Ag. 469, Luc. 3.596) and are perhaps intended to suggest an etymological connection. Whether the lines are genuine is a different matter: their deletion is accepted by Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007a) and tempts Fedeli (Reference Fedeli2022) to say ‘fortasse recte’.

3.16.1-2

Propertius has been sent a letter by his beloved, demanding his immediate presence at Tibur. missa is confusing, since the reader expects it to refer to epistula; should we read amissa (‘abandon’: OLD 5 ‘w. abs. obj.’) or omissa (as Suet. Otho 6.3)? Propertius regularly elides me before a following vowel (e.g. 3.24.19), although nowhere else in a pentameter.

3.16.19-20

Propertius is trying to persuade himself that he will be safe if he journeys to his beloved. Lovers are supposed to be pale and anaemic, but scholars have had trouble with paruo, which does indeed seem odd: the only two other exs. of the phrase are in Lucan, where 6.157 refers to general bloodshed and 6.226 is ‘somewhat different’, as Shackleton Bailey says.Footnote ¹⁸ The word one would expect is parco (cf. Sil. 11.54 ‘respersis non parco sanguine mensis’).

Many scholars agree that exclusis is inappropriate here (the exclusus amator is not in question), and, of the many emendations that have been proposed, Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007b: 373) favours Fischer’s ecce suis, rightly sensing a ‘change of direction’ after improbus; perhaps better than ecce is rursus, a favourite of Propertius, which means both ‘on top of that’ and ‘conversely’ (OLD 5-6). I suggest that Propertius wrote improbus? et rursus fit comes ipsa Venus (for improbus et cf. also 1.1.6, and for et rursus cf. 2.22b.49). It would follow that Dorville’s it comes, common elsewhere (e.g. Virg. Aen. 6.159, 6.448, Ov. AA 1.301, Luc. 6.828, al.) and printed by Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007a), is ruled out.

3.18.1-2

Agrippa had famously linked Lake Avernus to the sea by connecting it to the Lucrine Lake, which lay in between them and afforded access to the gulf of Puteoli; he then closed off the Lucrine Lake by claustra (Virg. G. 2.161) as part of his construction of the Portus Iulius, and it is this closure to which Propertius seems to be referring (‘the sea closed off by shady Avernus’). ludit, which Camps translates as ‘dances’, seems quite inappropriate to describe the sea’s reaction to this reconfiguration: Virgil describes the sea as resentful (162 ‘indignatum magnis stridoribus aequor’). Perhaps surgit (‘rouses itself to action’) would describe the sea’s attempts to escape from the confines in which Agrippa had enclosed it.Footnote ¹⁹

3.18.21-6

This elegy mourns the death of young Marcellus, the popular and favoured nephew of Augustus; in these lines Propertius is dwelling on the theme that death comes to everyone. Line 25 is doubly misleading. After four lines of generalisation (omnes, cunctis) the reader is likely to assume that ille (25) returns us to the subject of the poem, Marcellus; but this turns out not to be the case. Further difficulties then arise. What does ille mean? Scholars offer different possibilities: either the word is to be taken closely with cautus and means ‘the cautious man’ or Propertius is to be imagined as pointing to ‘yonder man’, in which case some think cautus is adverbial with condat (‘yonder man…cautiously’), while others think the meaning is ‘yonder cautious man’. Moreover, in the context of dying (21-4) one might reasonably expect condat to refer to burial, whereas it means ‘hide’ or (as Goold has it) ‘shut himself up’. These confusions would be removed if the line were to read seque licet ferro cautus circumdet et aere, ‘and although a cautious man may surround himself with iron and bronze’. Propertius does not elsewhere begin a line with seque, but Virgil does it twice (Aen. 1.627, 3.182) and Ovid many times, in both his hexameters and elegiacs. Heyworth/Morwood suggest that the poet has in mind either ‘a man in a suit of armour or a room lined with metal’: the latter possibility is more popular with other commentators and on the whole seems more likely, since thoughts of Death extracting the man’s head from his helmet are unwelcome.

4.1.7-8

Propertius is describing the earliest days of Rome. Camps’ comment on line 8 reads as follows: ‘the Tiber, to the poet’s contemporaries Rome’s own river, flowing through the centre of the metropolis, was then an alien stream, emerging from unknown territory and flowing through pastures on the outskirts of the tiny settlement. For the cattle suggesting a pastoral landscape cf. line 4 above.’ Camps’ contrast between past and present is surely correct, but his note that cattle have already been mentioned in line 4 suggests that Heyworth (Reference Heyworth1986: 208) is right to say that we do not want them again here in 8. Heyworth suggests instead murus, but, after a reference to the Tarpeian Rock, it seems odd to describe the River Tiber as a wall.Footnote ²⁰ Lines 5-7 indicate that the context is that of divinities: if Propertius wrote diuus (‘and the god Tiber was a stranger to our people’), it would sharpen the contrast between the former ‘alien stream’ and his contemporaries’ ‘own river’, now recognised as a god. There seems to be no parallel for the description of the Tiber as diuus, but for deus cf. Virg. Aen. 8.31.

4.4.19-20

Tarpeia spots Tatius exercising and is smitten. ‘It is not apparent why weapons should be raised through the mane’, says Hutchinson (Reference Hutchinson2006); but, if Propertius had written picta super flauas, the Latin would correspond to Goold’s understanding of the line (‘uplifting his blazoned arms over his horse’s golden mane’). ‘Clausal asyndeton is common in Propertius’, says Adams;Footnote ²¹ for some exs. see Camps on 3.12.34.

4.4.83-4

Tarpeia takes advantage of a holiday to betray the city to Tatius. Although numerous scholars defend remissus in the sense of ‘unguarded’ (Goold) or ‘free’ (Heyworth),Footnote ²² Hutchinson rightly calls it a ‘doubtful usage’ and prints the alternative reading remissis. The word for ‘to leave unguarded, neglect’ is omittere (TLL 9.2.582.47-58 ‘fere loca’, 584.14-26): the verb is much more at home in prose than in verse (ibid. 581.45-52), but an occasional use is seemingly accepted (e.g. Ov. Am. 2.1.17). If Propertius wrote mons erat ascensu dubius, festo uel omissus (‘the hill was awkward to climb (and) because of the holiday even unguarded:Footnote ²³ without delay she forestalled with a sword the barking of the dogs’), the meaning would fit the situation perfectly; the asyndeton is of the type where the second term is ‘semantically stronger’.Footnote ²⁴ If the asyndeton is nevertheless found objectionable, one might consider mons erat ascensu dubius festoque et omissus. The meaning is the same, and, although elision at this point in the hexameter is rare, cf. 3.1.29, 4.7.33; for et ‘even’ cf. 2.9.1.

4.7.27-8

Cynthia is berating Propertius from beyond the grave: he has not grieved for her with sufficient passion. Passion and warmth are often associated with each other in elegy, but the combination of incaluisse with togam seems a very odd hyperbole indeed. immaduisse is supported by Ov. Tr. 1.9.34 ‘lacrimis immaduisse genas’, but commaculasse, being transitive, would retain the focus on the unfortunate Propertius.

4.9.31-2

Exhausted by his encounter with Cacus, Hercules is about to seek help from women attending the rites of Bona Dea. Hutchinson describes the transmitted congesta, retained by Fedeli in both his editions, as ‘too extreme’ and regards concreta, which Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007b: 488) suggests but does not print, more appropriate of blood. Perhaps conferta (used of dust at Fronto p. 210.11 vdH²; for in cf. e.g. Liv. 3.6.3, Aetna 157); the word is absent from Propertius elsewhere and from Ovid, but it is used by Lucretius and by Virgil in the Georgics.

4.11.69-72

In this elegy the dead Cornelia, daughter of Scribonia (Augustus’ first wife) and wife of Paullus Aemilius Lepidus (cos. suff. 34 BC), speaks from beyond the grave and addresses the surviving members of her family: in addition to her husband there were two sons and a daughter. Discussion of the above couplets is made more difficult because between lines 61 and 75 scholars have proposed numerous transpositions, seen particularly clearly in the edition of Heyworth (Reference Heyworth2007a). Fedeli (Reference Fedeli1994, Reference Fedeli2022) and Hutchinson, however, retain the transmitted order of couplets, as printed here. The imperative fulcite is addressed to Cornelia’s offspring, who, it is hoped (69-70), will themselves have children and so extend the family line: Camps seems right to paraphrase 70b as ‘when there are so many of mine in whose lives my own life will be prolonged’. But both the text and interpretation of 71-2 are disputed. Although Fedeli prints the transmitted rogum, in his commentary (Reference Fedeli1965) he had offered no explanation of what the lines might mean. Hutchinson and Fedeli (Reference Fedeli2022) both print torum, the former translating: ‘A woman’s triumph, her final reward, is when unbiased reputation praises the completed service of her bed’. In other words the ‘merces consists of the triumph’ and is defined by line 72. Yet this interpretation seems not to follow after 69-70, since the context is not that of Cornelia’s own procreation but of that of her children.

A military triumph would bring financial rewards (cf. 3.4.3); a woman’s triumph is the successful production of children, and the final reward of that triumph is her children’s children (whom, if she dies prematurely, she will not live to see). In other words haec…merces is not prospective, as Hutchinson renders it, but retrospective, looking back to 69-70. What, then, of line 72? Since emeritus is the technical term for a retired soldier (OLD emereo 1c), Hosius’ emeritam, linking neatly with feminei…triumphi, deserves serious consideration. Hosius took rogum to be the object of emeritam, but the concept of ‘earning’ one’s pyre seems quite wrong (contrast 61 ‘emerui generosos uestis honores’); and, besides, emeritus = ‘retired’ is so often used absolutely. Is it possible that Propertius wrote rogi? The lines would mean: ‘This is the final reward of a woman’s triumph, at the time when free speech at the pyre praises the one who has served her time’. rogi is a possessive genitive and libera fama refers to the eulogy which would be spoken at the pyre of the deceased woman; the eulogist describes her grandchildren as her ‘final reward’ because they will constitute her afterlife (‘mea fata’, 70), living their lives long after she has died.