20 25 30 stantiaque in plausum tota theatra iuvent, Attalicas supera vestes, atque omnia magnis gemmea sint ludis: ignibus ista dabis. sed tamen huc omnes, huc primus et ultimus ordo: scandenda est torvi publica cymba senis. mors tamen inclusum protrahit inde caput. Nirea non facies, non vis exemit Achillem, Croesum aut Pactoli quas parit umor opes. hic olim ignaros luctus populavit Achivos, Atridae magno cum stetit alter amor. 21. huc . . . huc Beroaldus hoc . . . huc O hoc . . . hoc Lachmann. not mention Charon by name; cf. v. 31; 4, II, 7. 25. ille: the man trying to escape death, referred to in the next verse under the term inclusum caput. 27. Nirea: the handsomest but one of all the Greeks at the siege of Troy. Cf. Hom. I. 2, 673–674. 28. Pactoli . . . umor: cf. 1,6, 32, nn. 29. hic . . . luctus : i.e. the sorrows of inevitable death (C. S.).— ignaros: unconscious of the cause of their trouble' (C. S.). Men are only in modern times beginning to understand the causes of pestilence; the Greeks before Troy could only ascribe it to the wrath of Apollo. 30. An excellent example of Propertian ambiguity: Atridae at tibi, nauta, pias hominum qui traicis umbras, huc animae portent corpus inane tuae: qua Siculae victor telluris Claudius et qua Caesar, ab humana cessit in astra via. 21 Magnum iter ad doctas proficisci cogor Athenas, ut me longa gravi solvat amore via. 32. tuae O suae Markland. may be either gen. or dat.: magno, dat. or abl. (of price); stetit may = erat or mean 'cost' (with magno); and alter amor may refer to Chryseis or Briseis, according as the primus amor is supposed to be Clytemnaestra, Argynnus, or Chryseis. 31. nauta: cf. v. 24, n. 32. huc i.e. to the place of entombment, which is at the same time that of departure for the other world. animae . . . corpus inane : cf. Ovid, Met. 13, 488: quae corpus conplexa animae tam fortis inane.-tuae: 'for which it is thy special function to care'; usually; in this case, the poet goes on to explain, Charon has no duty to perform, as the soul itself has been translated among the celestials; animae is thus gen. Those who prefer to take animae . . . tuae as nom. explain the meaning as flabra, the unseen messengers that waft the soul to Charon, the word being used as in Hor. Car. 4, 12, 2: inpellunt animae case lintea Thraciae. In this corpus = manes by a common confusion in Propertius; cf. e.g. 2, 13, 32. 33. qua: of the route by which. - Claudius: M. Claudius Marcellus, the most illustrious of his direct ancestors, five times consul, and the conqueror of Syracuse in 212 B.C. It would have been highly inappropriate to deify Caesar and the young Marcellus, and omit his famous progenitor! 34. Caesar his grandfather by adoption. humana... via: that via leti, which by all calcanda semel (Hor. Car. 1, 28, 16). 3, 21 The poet, in desperate anxiety to rid himself of his love for Cynthia, proposes to leave Rome and take up his abode in Athens. There is no proof that the plan was ever carried out; cf. 1, 17, Intr. Catullus, when in a similar state of mind (No. 76), proposes only to conquer his passion 5 ΙΟ crescit enim adsidue spectando cura puellae: possit at ex omni me premit iste deus. vix tamen aut semel admittit, cum saepe negarit: quantum oculis, animo tam procul ibit amor. 21. 6. iste wille DV ipse NFL. 8. amicta Scaliger amica 0. 11. aequora F aequore NLDV. on the ground, instead of running away. 1-10: ‘I must get out of sight of Cynthia; and away from the tortures she inflicts on me. II30: I will sail away to Athens and engross myself in new studies and other interests; 31-34: thus I shall be cured of my passion, or die an honorable death.' 1. doctas: cf. 1, 6, 13, n. cogor: an intense expression frequent in Propertius; cf. 1, 1, 8; 1, 16, 13, etc.; Intr. § 35. 3. crescit spectando: cf. Cat. 51, 6: nam simul te, Lesbia, adspexi, nihil est super mi; Shakespeare, Sonnets, 75: “Sometime, all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look.". cura amor, as in 2, 12, 4. 5. mihi: A. 375. quacumque possit the poet's thought runs faster than his language, so 6. ex omni: sc. parte. Cf. Ovid, Rem. Am. 358: ex omni est parte fugandus amor.-premit: cf. I, I, 4; I, 9, 24; Ovid Rem. Am. 530: saevus Amor sub pede colla premit. 7. admittit: Propertius takes it for granted that the reader knows the subject. Cf. 3, 16, 23, n. 11. propellite: 'launch.' 12. pares: 'pair by pair,' that the rowing may be well balanced. - sorte: cf. Verg. Aen. 3, 510: sortiti remos, upon which Servius comments: sortiti, per sortem divisi ad officia remigandi, qui esset proreta, quis pedem teneret. 15 20 iungiteque extremo felicia lintea malo: qualiscumque mihi tuque puella vale. ergo ego nunc rudis Adriaci vehar aequoris hospes, quod superest, sufferre, pedes, properate laborem, 14. secundat: cf. Ovid, Her. 13, 136: blandaque conpositas aura secundet aquas. 15. turres cf. Tib. 1, 7, 19, n. 16. qualiscumque mihi: unkind as you have been to me'; cf. 3, 1, 30.-tuque on the position of the conjunction, cf. Intr. § 28. 17. rudis . . . hospes: this is to be the poet's first voyage on the Adriatic. 18. undisonos: Propertius here apparently tried his hand at a kind of picturesque epithet more commonly met in Catullus and Lucretius. 19. fessa cf. Tib. 2, 5, 45. - Lechaeo: sc. mari (and sc. mare with Ionium). Lechaeum was the port of Corinth on the Corinthian Gulf, as Cenchreae was its port on the east side of the isthmus. 20. phaselus the term, originally derived from its similarity in shape to the kidney bean, is used somewhat loosely by the poets for any swift-sailing vessel, e.g. Cat. 4, 1; Hor. Car. 3, 2, 29. 21. quod superest refers to the remainder of the trip, which the poet in imagination is now, at Lechaeum, eager to accomplish. But while he starts across the isthmus on foot, it is only to take ship on the Saronic Gulf for Athens. 22. terris: abl. of inst. 24. Theseae . . . viae: i.e. the road that the poet thinks of as trodden by Theseus of old up to Athens, the city of which he is the mythical hero. bracchia longa: the 'long walls' extending from Athens to the Piraeus, here called arms,' after the Roman military terminology, were called 'legs' (σkλn) by the Athenians. Within these the via Thesea had become a fine street between four and five miles long, and this is what Propertius pro 25 30 illic vel studiis animum emendare Platonis aut certe tabulae capient mea lumina pictae, seu moriar, fato, non turpi fractus amore: vel: 25. illic: i.e. at Athens. instead of a corresponding vel we have a series of clauses each introduced by aut. The poets abound in instances of similar carelessness, e.g. Ovid, Met. 15, 601: vel, si dignus erit, gravibus vincite catenis, aut finite metum fatalis morte tyranni. — studiis . . . Platonis: the Academic philosophy. 26. hortis: Epicurus taught his disciples in a celebrated garden at Athens, and left it to be used by his successors for the same purpose. 27. linguae i.e. ars dicendi, which became most powerful arma for Demosthenes. 28. librorum tuos . . . sales: hypallage for librorum tuorum sales. Menandre from the unusual nominative Menandrus; the most celebrated writer of the new Attic ROM. EL. POETS-21 321 comedy, to whom, as compared with his nearest rivals, the epithet doctus is not inappropriately applied; for he was a pupil of Theophrastus, and had a philosophical training. 29. aut certe: 'or at any rate'; if he cannot concentrate his thought on intense philosophical study, he can at least divert his attention with the abundant works of art at Athens. 30. manus : 'handiwork' (works of art); cf. Aetna, 598: vacca Myronis et iam mille manus. Similarly yeîpes in Greek (rarely and late). 31. profundi: sc. maris. 32. lenibunt: the only case of the archaic future in the Augustan poets. But the corresponding forms of the imperfect occur in 1, 3, 25, and 3, 13, 35. 33. Propertius has changed his tune since he wrote 2, 13, and 3, 16, 22. Cf. also 2, 26, 58. 34. Cf. 2, 8, 27: ista mihi mors est inhonesta futura. |