50 55 te duce vel Iovis arma canam caeloque minantem ordiar et caeso moenia firma Remo, 47. te duce: the fair presump- 51. pares... reges: Romulus and Remus. - silvestri... ubere: the famous bronze group in the Capitoline (Conservatori) Museum followed the tradition. 52. crescet...sub: 'shall come to measure up to.' 53. prosequar: i.e. metaphorically. - utroque ab litore: quoted from Verg. Georg. 3, 33. The reference is a hyperbolical one to the shores of the ocean at the east and west boundaries of the world. 54. Cf. 3, 4, 17, n. 55. Propertius is probably romancing here for effect. Pelusium surrendered to Octavian, according to the accepted version of history, promptly after the appearance of the hero of Actium in its harbor. 56. in sua fata: acc. of purpose: we should expect in se. 57. mollis: 'kindly.'-coeptae iuventae: 'my youthful under 60 dexteraque inmissis da mihi signa rotis. I I Quid mirare, meam si versat femina vitam takings.' fautor: Maecenas is 58. inmissis. . . rotis: as an elegiac poet Propertius is already far on in the race. - da... signa: but as patron Maecenas will now give the starter's signal for a new course, ie. in epic poetry, to which he must, however, have himself conducted the poet, as indicated in v. 57. 59. hoc .. laudis: i.e. that I look to you for inspiration and suggestion. 60. in partes ipse fuisse tuas : 'that even I have belonged to thy followers,' i.e. those recognized by Maecenas. The acc. is due to the implied motion which must have preceded fuisse; cf. Plaut. Amph. 180: mi in mentem fuit. 3, 11 The good fortune of Rome in escaping from the power of a woman through the merit of Augustus. An elegy beginning with the commonplace, for our poet, of the thralldom of woman's love, and ending with the glories of Rome and the Emperor, seems almost like a playful supplement to 3, 9, a hint of what Propertius might do under proper conditions, in the epic style. 1-8: Do you think it strange that I bow to a woman? Men learn by experience and so may you. 9-26: Remember the power of Medea, Penthesilea, Omphale, Semiramis ! 27-49: Yea, come nearer home, and think of Cleopatra and how great was the danger that she would bring glorious Rome under the sway of shameless Egypt! 49-72: But, thanks to Augustus, Rome was spared such humiliation and the gods still smile upon us as of old. So let every sailor on the Ionian Sea give thanks to Augustus!' 1. versat: my life is at the beck and call' of a woman. Cf. Tib. 2, 1, 64. The verb has frequentative force. 2. addictum : an insolvent debtor was called addictus when 5 10 15 criminaque ignavi capitis mihi turpia fingis, vulneribus didicit miles habere metum. custodisque feros clausit serpentis hiatus, iret ut Aesonias aurea lana domos. ausa ferox ab equo quondam oppugnare sagittis he was formally delivered by the praetor to his creditor (C. S.). Formal bondage, as compared with informal slavery of v. 1. 3. Cf. 1, 12, I. 5. melius: the sailor foretells the promise of the coming night better than a landsman. The poet justifies his own judgment on love matters by a comparison with the sailor and soldier (C. S.). 7. ista such as yours.' 9. Colchis: Propertius refers to Medea four times by this word. flagrantis: fire-breathing.' 10. egit. . . sevit: i.e. she made it possible for Jason to accomplish these feats. -armigera: cf. H. & T. §§ 123, 166. II. serpentis: the dragon. 12. lana: this less usual word for 'fleece' is used by Ovid also, Her. 12, 128; Fast. 3, 876. 13. ferox belongs to the predicate. ab equo: like the Greek ἀφ ̓ ἵππου. 14. Maeotis: unusual employment of the word to imply the region from which, i.e. the vicinity of Lake Maeotis, the modern sea of Azov. Other writers located the Amazons on the Thermodon, or more vaguely. - Penthesilea : the handsome daughter of Ares and queen of the Amazons, who was slain in battle by Achilles. Cf. Verg. Aen. 1, 491. 15. nudavit cassida: 'the removal of the helmet disclosed,' by a kind of brachyology (C. S.). Another instance of this rare byform of the nom. occurs in Verg. Aen. 11, 775. 16. Cf. Horace's well-known expression: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit (Ep. 2, 1, 156). 20 25 Omphale in tantum formae processit honorem, ut, qui pacato statuisset in orbe columnas, et duo in adversum missi per moenia currus ne possent tacto stringere ab axe latus, 11. 23. missi O mitti Tyrrell. 24. ne DV nec NFL. Parthians got their empire; but Propertius neglects any reference to the older empires under which Babylon flourished. Semiramis : the Babylonian queen who was, according to one prevalent tradition, the founder of the city. Cf. Strabo, 16, 1, 2; Ovid, Met. 4, 58. 22. cocto baked,' i.e. of brick. - tolleret: consecutive. 23. Fabulous accounts of the walls of Babylon have survived. Herodotus (1, 178) says they were 337 feet high and 84 feet wide. 24. ne: instead of the expected completion of his consecutive phrase, Propertius loosely tries to combine a purpose and a result idea in the same clause. What he means is that Semiramis had in mind a wall so broad that two chariots could pass without contact. Cf. A. & G. 537, 2, a, n. tacto ab axe: through the grazing of a hub' (C. S.); cf. 3, 2, 25, n. 305 30 iussit et imperio subdere Bactra caput. nam quid ego heroas, quid raptem in crimina divos ? Iuppiter infamat seque suamque domum: quid, modo quae nostris opprobria vexerit armis et famulos inter femina trita suos coniugis obsceni pretium Romana poposcit moenia et addictos in sua regna patres? noxia Alexandria, dolis aptissima tellus, 27. crimina V2 crimine 0. 26. imperio subdere . . . caput: 'to bow its head to her sway.' While the poet in leading up to the power of Cleopatra apparently intends to neglect the erotic element in the case of Semiramis, we must assume that he probably knew, and expected his readers to know, the story of the personal charms of the queen, her earlier marriage to Ormes, a general of Ninus, and the infatuation of Ninus himself for her, which led to the death of Ormes. 27. nam quid: there is an ellipsis: Enough such examples. Why need I dwell on ancient heroes, or even gods, to illustrate love and crime? Juppiter himself might furnish an instance. But we have one bad enough right at home in Antony and Cleopatra' (C. S.). 29. quid... quae: i.e. quid de ea dicam quae. -modo: 'but yesterday.' - opprobria: because of the character of the woman, as well as the very fact that it was a 31. coniugis O coniugii Passerat. woman with whom they were matched, it was an insult to the Roman army to engage in the fiasco at Actium. 30. et etiam.- femina: scornful term. trita: 'too familiar.' Propertius regards Cleopatra merely as an abandoned woman, distinguished from others of her class only in that she demanded the empire as her price (C. S.). He disdains to name her. 31. coniugis obsceni : subj. gen. Propertius, like Horace, is ashamed to mention the name of Antony. pretium: cf. Eleg. in Maec. 1, 53: hic modo miles erat, ne posset femina Romam dotalem stupri turpis habere sui. 33. noxia Alexandria : the poet apostrophizes Egypt through her two chief cities, Memphis and Alexandria, as the bane of Rome, most apt in treachery, and source of bloodshed and disgrace (C. S.). - dolis aptissima: cf. Bell. Alex. 7,3 aptissimum esse hoc genus ad proditionem dubitare nemo potest. |