LlbKARY UNIVERSITY OF ;\r-v- THE ELEGIES OF PROPERTIUS. GEORGE BELL & SONS LONDON t YORK ST. COVENT GARDES AND NEW YORK : 66 FIFTH AVENUE CAMBRIDGE i DEIOHTON BELL & CO. THE ELEGIES OF PROPERTIUS, WITH NOTES. LITERALLY TRANSLATED BY THE EEV. P. J. F. GANTILLON, M.A., St. John's College, Cambridge. WFFB METRICAL VERSIONS OF SELECT ELEGIES. BY NOTT AND ELTON. LONDON GEOEGE BELL & SONS 1895 Reprinted from Stereotype platet. PKEFACE. THE prose translation of Propertius in the present volume is based upon the text of the poet's latest and best editor, Mr. Paley. Subjoined are metrical versions of some of the Elegies by Nott and Elton. Dr. Nott is prone to the use of strangely dissonant rhymes, such as thee, delay; foretell, feel; traduce, house, &c. It has been attempted in several instances to remove such blemishes by the substitution of new lines, enclosed between brackets, the original reading being given in a footnote, CONTENTS. THE ELEGIES OF PROPERTIUS. BOOK I. PROSE. TERSl ELBGV 1. To Tullus .... Page 1 Elton Page 141 Nott 142 2 Nott 143 3. To Cynthia ..... 4 Nott 144 5 Nott 146 5. To Callus 6 Nott 147 6. To Tullus 7 Nott 148 7. To Ponticus 9 Nott 149 8. To Cynthia ib. Nott 150 9. To Ponticus 11 Nott 151 10. To Callus 13 Nott 152 11. To Cynthia 14 Nott 153 12. To a Friend 15 Elton 154 Nott 155 13. To Callus 16 Nott ib. 14. To Tullus 17 Nott 157 15. To Cynthia ..... 18 Nott ib. 16. Lament of the Tarpeian Gate 19 Nott 159 17. To Cynthia, on the Storminess of the Sea 21 Nott 160 18. The Lover's Soliloquy . . . 22 Nott 161 19. To Cynthia 23 Nott 162 24 Nott ib. 21. The Murdered Soldier . . , 26 Nott 16' 22. To Tullus ib. Nott ib BOOK IL ELECT 1. To Maecenas 2. On Himself 3. 4. 5. To Cynthia 6. To Cynthia 27 30 Elton ib. 32 33 Elton b4 Elton ICo 167 CONTENTS PROSE. n ERSE ELEGY 7. To Cynthia .... Page 35 8 . 36 9. On a Rival .... 37 Elton Page 169 BOOK III. 39 2. To Cynthia . 40 Elton 171 3. Effigy of Love 41 Elton 17'2 4. To Cynthia .... . 42 Elton ib. 5 44 6 . 45 7. To Cynthia .... 47 Elton 174 8. To Cynthia .... . 48 9. To Cynthia .... 49 10. To Cynthia .... . 50 Elton 176 51 12 . 52 13. ...... 53 14. . 54 15. Defence of Inconstancy . 55 Elton 177 J6. ...... . 56 17. On his Jealousy of a Rival 57 Elton 178 18 . 59 19. The Lover .... 61 Elton 180 20 . ib. 21. To Cynthia .... 64 Elton ft. 22 . 65 23 66 24. To Cynthia .... . 67 25 69 . 71 BOOK IV. BLEGY 1. Prediction of Poetic Immortality . 75 Elton 181 2 76 3. The Dream of Propertius . 77 Elton 183 4. 79 5. Praise of a Life of Ease . 80 Elton 185 6. A Dialogue between Lygdamus and Propertius .... . 81 7 83 8. . 85 9 86 10. The Birth-day of Cynthia . 89 Elton 186 11. ...... 90 12 . 93 13. ...... 94 CONTENTS. PROSB. ELBOY 14. fw 96 15 97 16 99 17 100 18 101 19 102 20 103 21 104 22. 106 23. 107 24 108 BOOK V. ELEGY 1 Ill 2 115 3 117 4. 119 5 122 6 125 7 127 8 131 9 133 10 135 11 137 vu miua. METRICAL VEE SIGNS. BOOK L ELEGY I. To TULLUS .... Elton Nott IT. To CYNTHIA, on her inordinate Love of Finery Nott III. Cynthia found sleeping . . Nott IV. To BASSUS, professing unalterable attach- ment to Cynthia .... Nott V. TOGALLUS Nott VI. To TULLUS, refusing an invitation to travel Nott VII. To PONTICUS, in vindication of the merits of Erotic Poetry .... Nott VIII. To CYNTHIA, on her proposed departure to Illyria Nott IX. To PONTICUS, on his amour with his slave girl Nott vui CONTENTS. ELEGY X. To GALLTJS. Congratulations and advice XI. To CYNTHIA, in absence . . . XTT. To A FELEND, on Cynthia's absence . XIII, To GALLUS, in praise of bis mistress XIV. To TOLLTJS. Love preferred to wealth XV. To CYNTHIA, Reproaching her indifference XVI. The Complaint of the Wanton's door . XVII. Bepinings at Sea .... XVIII. The Lover's Soliloquy on Cynthia's cruelty XIX. To CYNTHIA. Professions of unalterable attachment ..... XX. To GALLUS. The death of Hylas . XXI. The Murdered Soldier XXTT. To TCLLUS, on the author's birthplace BOOK IL ELEGY II. ON HIMSELF V. To CYNTHIA VI. To CYNTHIA IX. ONABlVAL BOOK III. ELEGY II. Elton 171 III. IV. VII. X. XV. XVH. XIX. EFFIGY OF LOVE .... (part) ON HIS POETBY .... To CYNTHIA ON VENAL INFIDELITY . . . To CYNTHIA, when in the country . Defence of Inconstancy . . . ON HIS JEALOUSY OF A RIVAL . . Elton Elton Elton Elton Elton Elton Elton Elton 172 172 173 174 176 177 178 180 XXI. To CYNIUIA . . . . Elton 180 BOOK IV. ELEGY I. PREDICTION OF POETIC IMMOSTALITT IIL THE DREAM OF PROPEUTIUS . , V. PRAISE OF A LIFE OP EASE . . X. THE BIBXHDAY Of CYNTHIA . . Nott 152 Nott 15H Elton 154 Nott 155 Nott 155 Nott 157 Nott 157 Nott 159 Nott 160 Nott 161 Nott 162 Nott 162 Nott 164 Nott 164 Elton 165 Elton 167 Elton 168 Elton 169 Elton 171 Elton 172 Elton 172 Elton 173 Elton 174 Elton 176 Elton 177 Elton 178 Elton 180 Elton 180 Elton 181 Elton 183 Elton 185 Elton 186 THE ELEGIES OF PEOPERTIUS. BOOK I.' ELEGY I.* TO TULLTJS. CYNTHIA'S eyes first took me, poor unfortunate, captive, previously affected by no passion: then did Love 3 cast down my resolute, disdainful eyes, and set foot on my neck : till in time he taught me, desperate power! to despise chaste maidens, 4 and to live recklessly. Even now, my present mad pursuit flags not after a whole year, though I am forced to have the gods opposed to me. Milanion, Tullus, by shrinking from no 1 Book /.] The title of this used to be " Sex. Aurel. Propertii Cynthia, Monobiblos," the latter epithet being supported by Ovid, Rem. Am. 764, " Cujus opus Cynthia, sola fuit." It was written and published before the author's other works, A. u. c. 728, probably when he was about twenty years of age, and is quoted by the title of Cynthia in ii. 24, 2, Quum sit toto Cynthia lecta foro. 2 Elegy /.] The poet laments the obduracy of Cynthia, who is worse, he says, than Atalanta, who was, in time, won by Meilanion : he desires the aid of witches, calls on his friends to extricate him, and concludes by warning such as are happy in love to be faithful, or they will repent it. This Elegy is addressed to Tullus, a friend and equal in age of Propertius, for whom see vi., xiv., xxii. ; IV. xxii. 3 Cf. ii. 30, 9, Tollere nusquam Te patietur humo lamina capta. 4 To despise chaste maidens. ,] Castas odisse puellas : that is, says Paley, to speak and think of female virtue as mere prudery and affectation, and to dislike it as presenting an obstacle to possession. Kuinoel under- stands by it, to hate all girls that were not as loose in conduct as Cyn- thia. According to others, the " chaste maids " are Minerva and th 2 PROPERTIUS. toils, broke down the stubborn cruelty of the daughter of lasus : l for once he roamed of yore crazed with love, amid the caves of Parthenius, 2 and tracked the steps of shaggy wild beasts : stricken too by the club of Hylaeus, 3 he groaned, in pain, among Arcadian rocks. Therefore was he able to tame the swift-footed damsel. Such is the force of prayers and good deeds in love. In me slow-witted Love devises no plans, and forgets to travel, as before, in the beaten paths. Come ye, that are skilled in bringing the moon down from the sky, and whose dread work it is to solemnize sacred rites with magic fire, come and turn the heart of my mistress, and make her more pale than myself. Then I may believe you able to draw down the stars, and turn the course of rivers by Cytaean 4 spells. And you, my friends, who attempt too late to cry me back who am already fallen, find some help for my wounded heart. I will bear the knife and torturing cautery unflinchingly : let me but have liberty to speak what my anger wills. Carry me to the end of the world, or over the seas, whither no woman can know my track. Remain ye, to whom the god lends a willing ear, and may ye meet with kindred feelings, and your love fear no danger. Me my Ve- nus torments with bitter nights, and Love at no time grants me a respite. Avoid, I warn you, this woe ; let each hold to his own beloved one, and let no one abandon his wonted love. But, if any one shall be slow to heed my warnings, alas ! with how great grief will he remember my words ! ELEGY II. 4 TO CYNTHIA. WHY delight, my life, in walking delicately with hair ela- borately decked, and in fluttering the transparent folds of a 1 The daughter of lasus. .] Atalanta, who though velox, a swift-footed huntress, is not to be confounded with her namesake, the daughter of Schoenus king of Scyros. * PartheniusJ] A mountain of Arcadia, on which Atalanta had, in infancy, been exposed. * Hylceus,'] tiXaloc, (wood-man,) a centaur who attempted to violate Atalanta and was killed by him : see Ovid, Ar, Am. ii. 191, who makes him use a bow. * Cyttsan.] Cyta, in Colchis, was the birth-place of Medea, hen called (infr. ii. 4, 7) Cytseis : the epithet is equivalent to magic. * Elegy II.} The poet begs Cynthia not to be so fond of dress, ar- guing from nature and the example of ancient heroines, and concludes PROPERTIUS. O Coan l venture ? Why drench your hail with Syrian 2 myrrh ? Why set yourself off 3 by artificial means, to spoil the grace of nature by purchased adornment, and not suffer your limbs to shine in their own loveliness. Believe me, there is no improving beauty like yours by adventitious aid : ge- nuine Love likes not a disguised form. See what beauteous hues the earth produces ; how ivy grows better at its own free will ; how the arbutus springs more fairly in solitary clefts of the rock ; how the stream runs in channels never formed by art ; how the shore produces, of its own accord, pebbles of varied hue, the growth of itself ; and how birds sing not the more sweetly by any art. Not in that way did Phoebe, 4 the daughter of Leucippus, set Castor's heart on fire ; nor did her sister, Hilaira, 4 make Pollux in love with her by her dress. Not so, in days of yore, did the daughter of Evenus, 5 on the banks of her father's stream, become the subject of strife be- tween Idas and the amorous Phosbus : nor did Hippodamia, 6 that was carried off in the chariot of a stranger, attract her Phrygian husband by artificial beauty ; but she had a face in- debted to no gems, and a skin like that seen on the canvass of Apelles. Their aim was not to get lovers from every quarter : modesty, beauty enough in itself, was theirs. I fear not now by assuring her that he will ever love her for her mental gifts, provided that she will live more modestly. 1 Coan.] Cos (Stanco), an island in the ^E^ean Sea, was celebrated for its delicate silks. See Hor. Od. iv. 13, 13; Tibull. ii. 3, 57. * Syrian.] Oronteus, from Orontes, the river on which was Antioch, tie capital of Syria. 3 Vendere. Cf. Juv. vii. 136, Vendunt amethystina. 4 Phoebe Hilaira.] Phcebe was a priestess of Athena, and Hilaira of Artemis : they were carried off and married by the Dioscuri, and bore them children. 5 The daughter, &c.] Marpesa, the daughter of Evenus, was carried off by Idas, the son of Aphareus ; Phoebus Apollo, who was also her suitor, chased and overtook them, whereupon Idas and he fought for '.he maiden, till separated by Jupiter, who left the decision with Marpesa, and ehe chose Idas. Her father had, at, the first, pursued Idas and her, to the banks of the Lycormas, and, on not being able to come up with them, had thrown himself into the river, which was ever afterwards cil'Jed by his name. 6 Hippodamia.] She was the daughter of (Enomaus, king of Pisa in Klis, and was married by Pelops, after he had treacherously vanquished her father in the charioUrace, and killed him. See Eur. Iph. T. ad ion. B 2 4 PROPEKTIUS. lest you appear to me less worthy than these, if she please one man a girl is sufficiently adorned, since Phoebus favours you especially with his gift of song, and Calliope willingly adds the Aonian lyre ; l a surpassing sweetness is not want- ing in your language, and you have everything that Ve- nus or Minerva loves. With these gifts you shall always be most pleasing to me, provided that you despise paltry gauds. ELEGY III." TO CYNTHIA. LIKE to the Gnossian maid 3 as she lay, exhausted, on the solitary shore, whilst the ship of Theseus sped away ; like to Andromeda, 4 the daughter of Cepheus, as she slept in her first sleep, released, at length, from the hard rocks ; or like as when a Bacchante, 5 wearied with constant dancing, falls down on the banks of the grassy Apidanus : 6 like to these did Cyn- thia, with her head resting at ease on her hands, seem to me to breathe softly in her slumber, while I, drunk with much wine, walked with tottering gait, and the boys shook the torches at the midnight hour. I tried to lay myself gently on the couch by her side, having not yet lost all my senses ; and although doubly fired, and urged on one side by Love, on the other by Bacchus, each a powerful god, to place my arm un- der her gently as she lay, and to put my hand to her lips 1 Aonian lyre.'] Aonia was a district in Boeotia, so called after Aon, the son of Poseidon: hence the Muses, from frequenting Mt. Helicon in Boectia, are called Aoniae sorores. * Elegy ///.] The poet, coming home elevated with wine, finds Cyn- thia asleep, but will not wake her : the moonlight at length arousing her, she reproaches him with leaving her so long. * Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, king of Crete, whom Theseus deserted at Naxos. 4 Andromeda.] The daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and Cas- siopeia : her mother boasted of her beauty, and said that she surpassed the Nereids : for this the country was inundated, and a sea-monster sent into the land. The giving of Andromeda to the monster stopped these two visitations. Perseus found her in that situation; slew the monster; and married her. See Ovid, Met. iv. 663 seq. * A Bacchante.] The Edones were a people in Thrace, one of the principal seats of Bacchantic worship, whence Edonis signifies " a Bac- " Apidanus, was a rirer in Thessaly, tributary to the Peneua; now ataldge. PROPERTIUS. 5 and steal a kiss ; yet I dared not disturb the rest of my mis- tress, fearing her stinging reproaches that I had before expe- rienced : but I remained as I was, with my eyes fixed on hef in ardent gaze, as Argus at the first sight of the horns of Io. the daughter of Inachus. At one time I loosened the chaplets from my forehead, and placed them on your temples, Cynthia : at another I amused myself by confining your truant tresses, or placing apples, stealthily, in the hollows of your hands : and I gave all my gifts to thankless sleep, gifts that often slipt from your slant bosom. And whenever at times your form moved and you heaved a sigh, my credulous soul was confounded by the idle presage, lest any unwonted vision was affrighting you ; lest some one was forcing you against your will to be his. At length, piercing through the casement op- posite her couch, the Moon, the officious Moon, with light that should have lingered, opened, by its gentle beams, her closed eyelids. Then resting on her elbow on the downy couch, " So, at last," she said, " another's contemptuous treatment has driven you from her closed doors, back to my bed. Where have you been spending the long hours of a night promised to me, and now come wearied to me, when the stars are gone ? May you, wretch, endure the agony of such nights as you are constantly bidding me have, to my sorrow. At one time I tried to drive away sleep by my purple embroidery, and when tired of that, then with playing on my Orphean lyre. At one time, in my solitude, I kept quietly groaning over the long time spent by you in another's embrace : until, at last, slumber fanned me with his soft wings, and bade me yield ; that was the last remedy for my tears. ELEGY IV. TO BASSUS.* WHY do you try, Bassus, by praising so many maids, to make me change and leave my mistress ? Why will you not suffer me to spend what life I have left in my present bondage, to 1 Elegy IF.] He reproaches Bassus with attempting to wean him from Cynthia, who, he assures him, (vs. 21,) will take signal vengeance ; and concludes by praising Cynthia's fidelity, and praying that it may last. * Bassus ^\ This is, possibly, the poet mentioned by Ovid (Tristia i/. 10, 47) as " clarus lambo :" we find another addressed by Persius in hi* ixth Satire. 6 PROPERTIUS. which I am more accustomed. Though you talk of the beauty of Antiope, 1 the daughter of Nycteus, and extol to the skies the Spartan Hermione, 2 and all that an age famed for pro- ducing fair women bore, Cynthia will not allow them to have any name : much less, if she be compared with trivial beauties, needs she fear the disgrace of being pronounced inferior even by a fastidious judge. But this forms the slightest portion of my passion for her ; there are more weighty reasons, Bassus, for which I am contented to perish with love : her native hue, the grace in every limb, and the delights that her embraces yield. Besides, the more you strive to part our loves, the more will each of us continue to baffle you, as we have pledged our faith. You shall not have the credit of this with impunity : the girl, whose love for me approaches to madness, shall know of it, and she will become your enemy, and no silent one. Cynthia will no longer, after this, match me with you, nor will she go to you herself ; she will remember so heavy a scandal ; and, in anger, will go round to all the other girls, and inform of you : alas, you will be welcome at no threshold. No altar will she pass without shedding tears, and no hallowed stone, what, and wherever it may be : no loss more heavy can be- fall Cynthia, than to have her guardian-goddess leave her, and carry away her lover, myself especially. May she ever continue in this mind, I pray, and may I never find anything in her to complain of. ELEGY V. 3 TO GALLTJS. O ENVIOUS one, restrain at last your tiresome tongue, and suffer Cynthia and me to pursue our course hand in hand. What would you have, madman ? To feel my passion ? Un- happy one ! you are in haste to know the worst evils, to pass, poor wretch, through hidden fires, and drink all the poisons of Thessaly. She is not like to, or to be compared with, com- 1 Antiope.~\ The daughter of Nycteus and Polyxo, and mother of Am- phion and Zethus. * Hermione was the daughter of Menelaus and Helen. * Jtleyy F.] He declines introducing Gallus, a man of some family, to Cynthia, assuring him that, even if she listen to him, she will lead him a terrible life, and that he (Propertius) will not, in that case, be able to help aim. PROPERTIUS. 7 mon streetwalkers : you will find 1 she is not one to be moder- ately angry. But if, by chance, she turns not a deaf ear to your prayers, how many thousand cares will she bring you ! she will leave you no sleep, no eyes ; single-handed, she can sub- due fierce-hearted men. Ah ! how often, when rejected, will you run to my threshold, when your brave words will die away in sobs ; a trembling chill with tears of sorrow will come over you, and fear will set its unseemly mark on your countenance; the words in which you would fain express your woe, will escape you, and you will be unable, poor wretch, to know who or where you are. Then you will be compelled to learn the heavy bondage of my mistress, and what it is to go home when shut out by her. Then you will not so often wonder at my paleness, and at my having no strength left in all my body. Your rank, besides, will not be able to help you in love : love knows not how to yield to painted ancestral busts. 2 But if you give the slightest token of your disgrace, how soon will your great name sink into a by-word ! I shall not, then, be able to give you any comfort when you ask it, since I have no cure for my own woe. But, luckless pair, suffering under the same love-sorrow, we shall be compelled to weep upon each other's bosom. Wherefore, Gallus, forbear to try my Cynthia's powers : her favour is not asked with impunity. ELEGY VI.s TO TULLUS. I AM not afraid now, Tullus, of encountering the Adriatic main with you, or of spreading a sail in the .2Egean waves ; since with you I would fain climb the Riphsean mountains, 4 and go beyond the abode of Memnon. 5 But I am kept back 1 You willjind.~\ Such is the force of the tibi, which must here be un- derstood jjOtKwf, i. e. acquisitively. * Ancestral busts.] i, e. Love makes no account of illustrious descent. The phrase is derived from the Roman custom of preserving waxen images of ancestors in the atrium. 3 Elegy VI.] Tullus, on being sent into Asia with his uncle, B. c. 29, wished the poet to go with him. Propertius professes his full confidence in Tullus, but declines the invitation, as he could not leave Cynthia, and military service was not his vocation. 4 The Ripheean mountains.'] These were in the north of Scythia. Cf. Georg. i. 240, Mundus ut ad Scythiam Riphaasque . . . arces Erigitur. Ib. iv. 518, Arva Riph&is nunquam viduata pruinis. * Memnon.] King of ^Ethiopia. The two regions are put indefinitely for the extreme north and south. 8 PROPERTIU8. by the words and embraces of my girl, and by the earnest prayers she utters while her colour comes and goes. For whole nights she keeps vehemently declaring her love for me, and complaining in her desolation, that there are no gods She now taunts me with indifference towards her, denies her- self to me, and uses such threats as a sorrowful mistress ad- dresses to an unkind lover. Against such complaints I cannot hold out an hour : may he perish that can love with moder- ation. Can it be of such importance to me that I become ac- quainted with Athens, the seat of learning, and view the wealth of time-honoured Asia, that on the ship being launched, Cyn- thia may upbraid me, and disfigure her face with passionate hands, and say that kisses are due from her to the wind for being contrary, and that nothing is harder to bear than a faithless lover. Endeavour, you that may, to excel the well- earned honours of your uncle, 1 and restore ancient privileges to allies that have long forgotten them : for you have never indulged in love, but your devotion has always been given to your country in arms : may the boy, armed with fatal dart, never bring on you troubles like mine, and all those distresses that are made public by my tears. vSuffer me, whom fortune has always willed to lie low, to devote my soul to frowardness, to the last. Many have willingly died after a long career of love : in the list of them may the earth hide me also. I was not born fit for campaigns nor for arms : the Fates will me to undergo the service 2 in which I am. But you can go either where soft Ionia stretches, or where the wave of Pactolus dyes with gold the land of Lydia, whether to traverse the land on foot, or cleave the sea with oars, and will form a part of recognised authority. Then if there come any moment in which you are not unmindful of me, be certain that I am living under an unfortunate star. 1 Your uncle.~\ This was L. Volcalius Tullus, consul in A. u. c. 27 1, with M. ^-Ernilius Lepidus. * The service.'] The analogy between love and warfare is frequently noticed by the Roman poets. See Hor. Od. iii. 26, 2, Militavi non ine gloria. Ovid, Am. i. 9, 1 , Militat omnis amant, et habet sua castra Cupido. PROPERTHTS. 9 ELiSGYVII.' TOPONTICUS. WHILE you, Ponticus, sing of Cadmean Thebes and the fatal contest between the brothers, (and may I thrive as you are likely to rival Homer, chief in Epic song, if the Fates are gentle to your strains,) I, as is my wont, am pursuing my career of love, and trying to devise something for a stern mistress. I am forced to obey not so much my natural bent as my woe, and to com- plain of my hard fate in life. In this task my allotted span is consumed ; this is my glory ; it is from this that I hope my poetic fame will arise. Let me be celebrated as having been the sole favourite of an accomplished girl, and as having often endured her unjust reproaches. Let a despised lover, hence- forth, read me constantly, and may the knowledge of my woes benefit him. If the boy Cupid shall have pierced you also with his unerring bow, a disaster that I would fain wish the gods I obey may not have decreed, you will weep, in sorrow, at your camp, 2 your seven bands of heroes lying neglected in lasting mildew : in vain, too, will you be desirous of com- posing a tender strain ; for Love, if he comes late, will dictate no verses to you. Then will you often praise me as no mean poet : then shall I be preferred to the other wits of Rome : nor will the young men be able to refrain from saying over my tomb, " great poet, interpreter of our pangs, thou art buried here." Beware then how you proudly despise my poetry. Love often comes late, and comes with a vengeance. 3 ELEGY VIII. 4 TO CYNTHIA. ARE you, then, mad ? Has my affection no hold on you ? Am I of less moment to you than cold Illyria ? And does your friend, whoever he may be, appear of such consequence 1 Elegy F//.] He recommends Ponticus not to despise love-poetry, because, if ever in love himself, he will feel the want of it. Ponlicus, who is also addressed in the 9th Elegy of this book, was the author of a heroic poem on Thebes. He is mentioned by Ovid, Trist. iv. 10, 47. 2 The description of the camp of either party in his " Thcbaid :" ag- mina septem alludes to the Septem contra Thebas, or their antagonists. 3 With a vengeance.'] Magno fcenore, " with great interest." * Elegy F///.] The poet, on hearing that Cynthia purposed accom- panying a certain Praetor to Illyria, tries to dissuade her, and ultimately lucceeds. 10 PROPERTIU8. to you that you are ready to go, without me, under any wind ? Can you brook to hear the roaring of the mad sea ? Can you lie with a stout heart on board a rough ship ? Can you, with your delicate feet, tread on the cold snow ? Can you, Cyn- thia, bear snows to which you are not accustomed ? Oh that the winter season may be of double length, and may the mari- ner be forced to be idle by the tardy Vergiliae. 1 May no ship be launched for you from the Tuscan shore, and no unfriendly breeze set my entreaties at nought ; may I see no pause to the gales that now are blowing, when the waves are about to carry away your bark, and may they give me an opportunity, as I stand on the lonely shore, to call to the cruel girl again and again with angry gestures ? But however you treat me, perjured one, may Galatea 2 not be unfriendly to your passage ; in order that, after having safely passed the Ceraunian peaks, 3 Oricus 4 may receive you into its quiet bay. No love 5 will alter me, and prevent me from pouring out genuine grief on your threshold : nor will I fail to stop sailors and say to them, " Tell me, in what port is my mistress shut up ? " I will say, too, though she be fixed in Atracian or Elean 6 regions, she will be mine once again. ******* *7 1 Vergili TO GALLUS. WE give you this advice, Gallus, from our long-lasting love: forget it not, nor let it slip from your recollection. " Often Fortune proves adverse to a thoughtless lover ;" so we may learn from Ascanius, 2 that river so cruel to the Minyae. 3 You have a dear youth most like Hylas, the son of Theioda- mas, not inferior to him in beauty, nor different in name ; him, whether threading the windings of a river shaded by woods, or whether the wave of Anio laves your limbs, or whether you walk in the region of the giant-named district, 4 or wheresoever in your wanderings a river meets you, him, always defend from the covetous grasp of the Nymphs : Au- sonian Dryads are as capable of love as any others. May you, Gallus, not have the lot 'twas hard, indeed of constantly searching mountains, and chill ranges of rock, 5 and rivers, after having experienced what Hercules did, in his wretched wanderings over unknown shores, and for which he wept near the pitiless Ascanius. For they say that the Argo, having left the docks of Pagase, started on a long voyage to Phasis, and that, after having passed the waves of the daugh- ter of Athamas, 7 they put in the ship, on her way to the rocky 1 Elegy XX.] Gallus is warned, by the example of Hercules and Hy- las, to be careful of a favourite boy on whom he had fixed his regard. a Ascanius.] A river in Bithynia, (Georgic. iii. 269, Sonans Ascanius,) styled crudelis from its causing Hercules the loss of Hylas. See Theocr. xiii. 3 The Minyce.] The Argonauts are called Minyse, from being descended from the Minyans, a nation in the north of Bosotia. See Pindar, Pyth. iv. 69. Ovid, Met. vii. 1. 4 The giant-named district.'] Cumse in Campania, the district known as the Phlegraeaa plains, was the scene between the gods and rebel giants. The origin of the name (tj>\iyuv, to blase) is undoubtedly to be ought in some volcanic eruption. 4 Chill ranges, &c. ] Compare Theocr. xiii. 66. 8 Pagase.] The post in Thessaly whence the Argo started. See Ovid, Met. ut supr. cit., and Fasti, i. 491. 7 The daughter of AtKamas.] Helle, after whom the Hellespont ("EX Xijg TTOVTOC) was named PROPERTIUS 25 abodes of the Mysians. 1 Thereupon the band of heroes, as soon as they had set foot on the hospitable shore, spread the level beach with a litter of leaves. But the companion of the unconquered youthful hero had gone farther to obtain water, of which there was but little there, from a retired fountain. Him followed two brothers, the offspring of Aquilo, Zetes and Calais, 2 and flew to snatch kisses as they hung on balanced wings, to carry off kisses from his upturned face, each flying away in turn. Now he is lifted from the ground, and hid beneath the wing of either ; now he wards off, with a bough, the attack of the winged pair. Ere long the offspring of Orithyia, 3 descendant of Pandion, left him. O woe ! forward went Hylas, went to the Hamadryads. There was in that place a spring, beneath the crest of Mount Arganthus, a liquid abode, loved by the Thynian Nymphs ; over it from the boughs of the trees in that wilderness hung dewy apples indebted to no care, and around, in the water- meadow, rose fair lilies, grouped with purple poppies. At one time, plucking the tops from these, with delicate hand, in boyish sport, he preferred the flowers to the task he had undertaken ; at another, bending, in guileless security, over the pretty ripples, he lingered in his wanderings to look play- fully at himself in the water. At length he prepares to dip in his hands and draw some of the water, leaning on his right arm that he might bring up a plentiful supply : immedi- ately the Dryad Nymphs, smitten with his beauty, left, in wonder, their accustomed dances, and gently drew him, as he leant forward, into the yielding stream. Then Hylas made a sound with his ravished body: Alcides responded 4 again and again from afar; but the breeze carried the name he shouted back to him from the distant fount. , "Warned by this, Gallus, take care of your love ; whereas you have hitherto seemed to leave your Hylas to the mercy of the Nymphs. 1 The Mysians.'] Compare Apoll. Rhod. i. 1177. - Zetes and Calais.'] They were the sons of Boreas or Aquilo, and were among the Argonauts. Find. Pyth. iv. 131. 3 Oreithyia.] Boreas carried off from the banks of the Ilissus (Plat. Phaedr. 229, B. Stallb.) Oreithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, son ol Pandion. 4 Alcides responded.] Compare Theocr. xiii. 58. 26 PROPERTIES. ELEGY XXI. 1 SOLDIER, who art hastening to avoid the fate of thy com- rades, having been wounded at the Etruscan lines, 2 why strain thy eyes, and make them swell with tears for me ? I am one closely connected with the war in which thou takest part. So may thy parents joy in thy safety, but let my sister learn thesa events from thy tears : that Gallus, saved from amidst the weapons of Caesar, could not escape the hands of a bar- barous spoiler, and that whatever bones she finds scattered over Etruscan mountains, she may know to be mine. ELEGY XXII. 3 TOLLTJS, from our friendship, you repeatedly ask me what is my rank, whence I derive my birth, and of what family I am. If you know Perusia, the grave of your countrymen, fatal to Italy when times were hard, when civil discord ex- pelled her citizens from Rome, let me be allowed, O Etru- rian soil, to grieve above all others : thou hast suffered the limbs of my kinsman to be scattered abroad, thou hast not covered his ill-fated remains in thy soil. Umbria, 4 rich in fertile land, joining close to the champaign country beneath, gave me birth. 1 Elegy XXI.~\ Gallus, a relative of the poet, was killed by bandits in the Perusine war : these are supposed to be his last words, which he desires a soldier to bear to his sister. This Gallus is not the person addressed in El. v., nor is he the poet mentioned in iii. 26, 91. 2 The Etruscan linesJ] The fortification of Perusia, now Perugia, in Etruria ; it was taken by Octavianus from Antony, B. c. 40. See Suet. nt. Oct. 14; infra ii. 1, 29. 1 Elegy XX//.] He informs Tullus as to his birth-place, paying a passing tribute of regret to Gallus. * Umbria.} The poet was most likely born at Asisium, (Assist,) about 12 miles E. of Perusia. BOOK II. ELEGY I.i TO MAECENAS. Do you aak whence it comes that I write of love so often ? Whence comes it that my book reads so softly ? It is not Calliope inspires my strains, nor Apollo ; it is my girl herself that gives me ability. If I see her walking in shining dress of Coan dye, the whole of the present piece will be of the Coan dress. If I see her hair flowing in disorder over her brow, she walks proudly rejoicing in the praises of her hair. If she has struck a tune on the lyre with fingers ivory-white, we admire her skill in fingering the strings. Or if she droop her lids in sleep, poet-like I find fresh themes for song ; or if she struggle with me, her vesture snatched off", then indeed I compose a piece as long as the Iliad. Has she done anything, has she said anything no matter what whatever she says, a glorious long descant comes forthwith out of a mere nothing. But if the fates, Maece- nas, had given me power enough to marshal heroic bands to arms, I would not sing of the Titans, of Ossa piled on Olym- pus, to make Pelion the stepping-stone to heaven, nor of hoary Thebes, nor of Pergamus, theme of Homer's song, nor that by Xerxes' command two seas were united ; 2 nor the old kingdom of Remus, nor the spirit of proud Carthage, nor the threats of the Cimbri, 3 and the gallant deeds of Marius : I would tell of the wars and the exploits of your patron Caesar, and you next to the great Caesar would be my care. For as often as I sang of Mutina, 4 or of Philippi, grave of so many 1 Elegy 7.] Propertius assures Maecenas that he cannot write heroic poetry ; and that he will ever continue faithful to Cynthia onlv. 2 Two seas were united.~\ This alludes to the canal cut Dy Xerxes through Mt. Athos, connecting the peninsula with Chalcidice. See Hdt. vii. 22 seq. 3 The Cimbri.'] Probably inhabitants of the peninsula of Jutland; they were defeated B. c. 101, by C. Marius, in the Campi Raudii iiear Vercellse, after having defeated six Roman armies in succession. 4 Mutina (Modena) is noted for the siege sustained there by D. Brutus (B. c. 43) against Antony, and for the battle against the latter, in -which the two consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, were slain. 28 PROPERTIU8. citizens, or the sea-fight 1 and flight off Sicily, and the up- rooted hearths of the ancient Etruscan people, or the taking of the shore famed for the Pharos 2 of Ptolemy ; or when I sang of Cyprus and of the Nile, as, brought in triumph to the city, 3 it flowed in a flagging stream with its seven captive waters, or of the necks of kings surrounded with golden fetters, and prows taken at Actium, travelling up the Sacred Way : my Muse would always inweave with those exploits, you, a faith- ful subject both in peace and war. In the shades below, Theseus, among men on earth, Achilles, call as witnesses to their friendship, the one the son of Ixion, the other the son of Mencetius. 4 But Callimachus has not lungs enough to thun- der forth the Phlegrean contests of Jove and Enceladus ; nor have I the force to record the name of Caesar among his Phrygian ancestors in nervous verse. The sailor talks of storms, the farmer of bulls, the soldier counts his wounds, the shepherd his sheep. We, on the other hand, tell of those whose field of battles is the narrow couch. Let each one spend his time on the art in which he is skilled. There is credit in dying for love : there is credit again in being privi- leged to enjoy but one love. Oh may I enjoy my love with- out a rival. If I remember, she is wont to blame fickle girls, and disapproves of the entire Iliad on account of Helen. Whether I must drain potions like those of Phaedra, 5 pre- pared by a step-mother for a step-son, but doomed not to affect him, or whether I am to die by herbs of magic power, 1 The sea-fight.'] The defeat of Pompey by Octavius off the coast of Sicily, B. c. 35, is here alluded to. 3 Pharos.] The allusion is to the capture, by Augustus, B. c. 30, of Alexandria. The Pharos was a lighthouse built on an island of the same name (now Pharillon) by Ptolemy Philadelphus (B. c. 280). It is described by Caesar, B. C. iii. 112, Pfiarus est in insula turris, magna altitudine, miriflcis operibus instructa, quse nomen ab insula ciccepit. The word is used poetically for Egypt, as here. Cf. Lucan, viii. 442, Petimus Pharon arvaque J,) an island between Crete and Rhodes. 84 PROPERT1US. Cynthia, however much you set at nought the whispers of common report, this verse will blanch your cheeks. ELEGY VI. 1 NOT thus did lovers throng the house of the Ephyrean 2 Lais, at whose doors all Greece bent, nor was the crowd so great in times of yore, at the house of Thais, 3 celebrated by Menander, with whom the people of Athens 4 disported itself, nor was Phryne, 5 who was rich enough to rebuild Thebes, made happy by so many admirers. Moreover you often say falsely that your lovers are your relations, and there are not wanting persons to kiss you by right of kinship. I am vexed by the pictures of young men, by the names you have ever on your lips, by the speechless infant boy in the cradle. I am annoyed if your mother gives you many kisses, if your sister, if she with whom your friend sleeps. I am annoyed by everything : I am a coward, pardon my cowardice, and in my misery fear that under the woman's dress a man lies hid. These were faults, go says report, that brought men, in days of yore, to blows : from beginnings like these came 1 Elegy VI.'} This Elegy, in subject similar to the preceding, laments the degeneracy of the age, and ends with a commendation of chastity. * Ephyrean Lnis.~\ Corinth was called Ephyra after a daughter of Oceanus, (Virg. Georg. iv. 343,) the primitive inhabitant of the country. Lais was a celebrated courtesan of the place, who lived in the time of the Peloponnesian war ; she was notorious for her avarice and caprice. See Athenaeus, 570, C. ; 588, D. ; 585, D. ; 582. The proverb, Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, " It is not every man that can venture on a visit to Corinth," arose from the enormous sums that she exacted from her admirers. 3 Thais.'] She was with Alexander the Great in his Persian expedition, and is host known from the story, somewhat doubtful though it be, of her having stimulated him, during a festival at Persepolis, to set fire to the palace of the Persian kings. See Dryden's Alexander's Feast, She is called Menandrea, (cf. v. 5, 43,) from Menander having inscribed a play with her name. 4 The people of Athens.} The Athenians are called populus Erich- thotihts from an old king, Erectheus or Erichthonius. * 1'hryne."] She was native of Thespia; in Bceotia, and is said to have offered to rebuild Thebes, if Alexander would consent to having a tablet, comineiixtnitine; the fact, set up on the walls. The Venus Anadyomenc of ApHles, and the Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles, are said to have been painted from her figure. See Athenaeus, xiii. 590, for anecdotes of her, more particularly that of Hyperides gaining her acquittal by causing her to bare her bosom before judges who were about to condemn her to death. PROPERTIUS. 35 the fatal Trojun war. The same madness induced the Cen- taurs to hurl embossed vases at Peirithous. 1 Why need I re- call Grecian instances ? Thou wast the ringleader in an assault, O Romulus, nurtured by the milk of a wild she-wolf. Thou didst teach thy men to carry off with impunity Sabine 8 maids : owing to thee Love now dares anything at Rome. Happy was the wife of Admetus, 3 and the bed-partner of Ulysses, and every woman that is contented with her hus- band's house. What was the use of erecting temples to Chastity for maidens' use, when any married woman may be what she pleases ? The hand that first traced indelicate figures, and placed in a chaste house objects disgraceful to see, corrupted the eyes, hitherto unsullied, of maidens, and would have them no longer ignorant of its own depravity. Evil be to him that produced on earth, by that art, quarrels latent in a mute object of pleasure. Walls were not, in former times, adorned with figures like those : houses, then, had no guilt exhibited on them. But it is not without reason that the spider has veiled the temple, and grass ignominiously over- spread the place of the deserted gods. What guards, there- fore, what abode, impassable by an enemy's foot, shall I assign thee ? Rigorous custody, placed over a woman against her will, is of no avail. Cynthia, she that is ashamed of sinning 4 is safe enough. Neither wife nor mistress shall ever seduce me ; thou shalt always be my mistress, and my wife. ELEGY VII. 5 TO CYNTHIA. CYNTHIA rejoiced indeed at the repeal of the law/' since the passing of which we have both of us long wept for fear it should divide us, though Jupiter himself cannot part 1 See on ii. 2, 9. 2 See Livy i. 9. * Alcestis. 4 Ashamed of sinning.'] Compare Comus, 419 seq., I mean that, too, but yet a hidden strength, &c. 5 Elegy VII.'] He congratulates Cynthia on his being able to continue his connexion with her, which law had threatened to dissolve. 6 The repeal of the law.~] The law alluded to is Lex Julia De Maritis Ordinandis. It was enacted about B. c. 18; came into operation . c. 13; modified A. D. 9. Had it continued in force Propertius must have married, and as Cynthia was a meretrix, a union with her was impossible. For the law see Tac. Ann. iii. 15. As this book was written B c. 25, there is a historical difficulty in the dates ; some suppose that a previous attempt of Augustus is alluded to. D 2 36 PROI'KRTIUS two lovers against their will. But Caesar is mighty : yes, Caesar is mighty in arms : but the conquering of nations avails nothing in love. For sooner would I suffer this head to be parted from my neck than submit to quench the fire of our love by wedlock, or pass, as a husband, your shut-up house, and look back with swimming eyes on its forsaken door. Alas, what sort of sleep, Cynthia, would the pipe play to you in my wedding procession ? sadder would it be than a funeral trumpet. What care I for furnishing soldiers to aid my country's triumphs ? No soldier will ever spring from my blood. But if I were to follow, 1 in earnest, my mistress to the field, the mighty horse of Castor 2 could not go fast enough for me. My fame, spread as far as the Scythians, 3 dwellers in the snowy wild, has got me so great a name from my poet's profession : so I fight not. You alone are pleasing to me : may I alone, Cynthia, continue to please you : such love as yours will be more precious to me even than family. ELEGY VIII.* A MAID long dear to me is taken from me, and yet, my friend, you bid me not shed tears. No enmities but those of love are implacable : stab myself and I shall be a more mer- ciful foe. Can I imagine her locked in another's arms ? Shall she, that was once called mine, be mine no longer ? All things are turned upside down : of a surety it is so with love : yield, or conquer : this is the wheel of Love. 5 Often have mighty chiefs, often have mighty kings fallen : Thebes once stood : once there was a lofty Troy. How many presents have I 1 If I were to follow, &c.] " I read here, ' Vera mece comitarer castra puellce:' Kuinoel has Romance comitarent by a conjecture most improba- ble on any known principles of palaeography." Paley. Jacob and Weber, (Corp. Poet. Lat.,) in verba mcae oomitarer, &c. The metaphor of castra as applied to love-affairs is common enough, so Propertius adds vera to imply going to war in earnest. 2 The horse of Castor.] Cyllarus. See Geor. iii. 90. Val. Place, i. 246. * The Scythians.] They are called Borysthcnidce, from the Borysthenes, (Dneiper,) their chief river. * Elegy VIII.] He laments his desertion by Cynthia, and threatens desperate things. * The wheel of Love.] The picturing of Fortune with a wheel is an old allegory : the poet gives one to Love here, from the changing nature of that power as well as of Fortune. PROPERT1US. 37 given, what verses have I made ! and yet the iron-hearted girl has never said, " I love." I have been thoughtless, then, for many, yea, too many years, in submitting to you, worth- less one, and your house. Did I ever show myself free to you ? will you be for ever casting disdainful words at me ? So then, you will die in the prime of life, Propertius ? Yes, die: let her exult in your death. Let her insult my spirit, vex my shade, dance on my funeral pile, and spurn my bones with her foot. Did not Boeotian Harmon 1 fall on the tomb of Antigone, wounded in his side with his own sword, and mingle his bones with those of the maid, without whom he would not return to his Theban home? But you shall not escape ; you must die with me : from this same dagger must the blood of either reek. Although a death of that sort will be dishonourable to me, dishonourable it is, you shall die with me. Even Achilles the great, when his bride was taken away from him, suffered, in his desolation, his arms to lie idle in his tent. He had seen the flight of the Greeks, and the scattered slaughter of them on the shore, and the Dorian camp 2 glowing with the fire kindled by Hec- tor: he had seen Patroclus lying stretched out, in mighty bulk, on the sand, and his hair, reeking with blood, lying in disorder on the ground. He suffered all for fair Briseis' sake : so great and passionate was his grief on being parted from his love. But after that, by a late retribution, she, the captive of his spear, was restored, he dragged that brave Hector behind his Thracian car. As I am much inferior to him both in parentage 3 and arms, is it wonderful that Love fairly tri- umphs over me ? ELEGY IX.* WHAT my rival is, I have often been ; but, perchance, even in an hour, he will be turned off, and some one else be more 1 Hamon.] Son of Creon, king of Thebes in Boeotia. He was in love with Antigone, the daughter of QBdipus and Jocasta : when she was buried alive, by his father's orders, he committed suicide on her grave. See Soph. Antig. 1192 seq. * The Dorian camp.] Allusion is here made to the firing of the Greek fleet by Hector. See Iliad xvi. 114, &c. He also slew Patroclus (xvi. 656, &c.; xvii. 192). * Parentage.'] Achilles was the son of Thetis, a sea-goddess. * Elegy IX. He upbraids Cyiilhia with deserting him, *nd ends by 38 PROPERTIUS. favoured. Penelope, woman worthy of so many suitors, was able to remain faithful for twice ten years. She was able to defer wedding any one by feigning to be engaged in spin- ning, 1 craftily undoing by night what she had woven by day ; nud though she never expected to see Ulysses again, yet she remained faithful to him till age came upon her. Briseis, too, embracing the dead Achilles, beat her fair face with phrensied hand, and, a sorrowful captive, washed the body of her blood-stained lord, having brought him to the Simo'is. and laid him by its yellow pools. Her hair, too, she disfigured, and bore what the fire had left of the corpse of the mighty Achilles, and his huge bones, in her little hand, when, O Achilles, neither Peleus nor thy mother, goddess of the azure main, came to thee, nor Scyrian Deiadamia 2 attended her widowed husband. Then was Greece blessed with true daughters : then virtue throve even in the camp. But you, unnatural one, could not be alone one night, nor remain one day in solitude; nay, you and your admirers quaffed the wine-cup with many a laugh : most likely abusive words were spoken of me. You even welcome him who formerly, of his own accord, left you : may the gods grant you enjoy him to your cost ! Is this the reward for the vows made by me fov your safety ? When the Stygian wave had all but got you, and we, your friends, were standing, in tears, about your couch, where or what, in the name of heaven, was he, O treacherous one ? If I were detained as a soldier in the distant Indies, or if my vessel were on the ocean, what would your feelings be ? But it is easy for you to make up a story and frame excuses , in this accomplishment a woman is always a proficient. The Syrtes shift not so much with the changing breeze, nor are leaves so much shaken by the south wind in winter, as woman's anger comes and goes without any fixed law, be the reason important or of no consequence. Now, since such is your determination, I will yield. O ye Cupids, send out your arrows sharper, I pray you. Make them tell unerringly, and release me from this life : my blood will be to you the great- declaring that his affection is still unchanged. This stands as the tenth Elegy in some books, a break being made after vs. 16 of the foregoing. 1 Spinning.'} Minerva, as the patroness of spinning, is put for (eld. * Deidamia] was the daughter of Lycomedes, and mother of Neop tolemoi. J-ROPERT1TJ8. 39 est possible prize. The stars bear me witness, 1 and the morning hoar-frost, and the gate stealthily opened to me, poor wretch, that nothing in life has ever been dearer to me than you: now, too, you shall still be dear, although my enemy. No other mistress shall share my bed: I will be alone, since I may not be yours. And oh, grant it, ye gods, if perchance I have lived a guileless life, may my rival in the midst of his love become a stone. Not more fatally, while contending for the throne, did the Theban chiefs 2 fight and fall, despite their mother's efforts to part them, than I would fight with you, my rival, if my mistress were the prize, and I consent to meet death, so that I slay you at the same time. BOOK III. 3 ELEGY I. [ii. 10, K.] BUT 5 it is now time to traverse Helicon in other measures, and full time to give the field to my Thracian steed. It is now my pleasure to sing of troops of horse mighty in the fight, and to chronicle the Roman wars of my chief. But if my powers fail me, at all events my courage will be merito- rious : in great attempts even to have had the will is enough. Let early youth sing of love, maturer age of war : I will sing of wars, since my mistress has been celebrated. Now I wish to proceed on my way with look more dignified and sober: 1 The stars, &c.] Some suppose a lacuna here, but there is none really. * The Theban chiefs.} The brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, who killed each other, their mother, Jocasta, having vainly tried to part them. See Eur. Phaen. 300637. 3 Book III.] Some say that the second book has been divided by Lachmann without any sufficient reason. We have followed Paley in adopting the division. To ordinary readers, however, the question whether there are four or five books of Elegies is of no great importance. 4 Elegy /.] The poet declares his intention to sing of wars and heroic themes, but at the same time professes his inability to do so properly. 4 But, &c.] Some suppose the commencement of this Elegy to b lost : the idea of the poet was, however, " Hitherto I have sung of love, but," &c. 40 FKOPERTIUS my Muse DOW teaches me another kind of song. Arise, my soul : soar from a lowly strain, Muses, and gather strength : my work must now be in a lofty tone. The Euphrates no longer boasts of the Parthian horsemen's 1 flying fight, and grieves that it sent not back the Crassi. 2 India, moreover, is submitting its neck to thy triumph, Augustus, the recesses of Arabia, 3 hitherto untouched, are trembling at thee ; and every sequestered region of the earth will feel thy conquering hands. This campaign will I follow : by singing of thy military deeds I shall become a great poet : may the Fates grant me to survive to that day. As, when we cannot reach the head of great statues, a wreath is laid just at the feet, so I now, un- able to reach the heights of Epic song, offer, in humble adora- tion, an ordinary offering of frankincense. Not yet are my strains acquainted with the founts of Ascra: 4 Love has only bathed in Permessus' wave. 5 ELEGY II. 6 TO CYNTHIA, [ii. 11.] OTHERS may write about thee, and yet thou mayest be un- known ; let him who is for sowing seed in a barren soil praise thee. The dark day of thy funeral, last rite that can be paid thee, will carry off, believe me, all thy accomplishments in one bier, and the traveller will pass by thy bones in contempt, and will not say, This dust was once a learned maid. 1 Parthian horsemen.'] They were noted for their mode of warfare, which consisted in feigning flight, then turning on their saddles and sending a deadly shot at their pursuers. Cf. Georg. iii. 31. Hor. Od. ii. 13, 17. * The Crassi.] M. Licinius Crassus, and his son, P. Licinius, fell in the well-known and disastrous expedition to Parthia, B. c. 54. * Arabia.] The allusion to the disastrous expedition under jElius Callus to Arabia, marks the date of the poem, which must have been written about the time the expedition was contemplated, B. c. '25 ; and certainly not after its ignominious failure. Cf. Hor. Od. iii. '24, 1, Intactis opulentior Thesauris Arabum. 4 Ascra.'] In Boeotia, the birthplace of Heiiod : the poet means that lie cannot rise to the majestic of Hesiod's song. His birthplace is de- scribed by Hesiod (Opp. G38) as oivpri KWfir], xtlpa icam}, Stptt dp- /a\7j, ovl TTOT' iff9\t). 5 Permessus.'] A fountain or river on Mount Helicon. Cf. Viig Eclog. vi. 64. * Elegy //.] A warning to Cynthia not to be too proud of her popular- ity, which she owes to his praises rather than to any qualities of her owt, which will make her kuown to posterity. PROPERTIUS. 41 ELEGY III. 1 [ii. 12.] THINK you not that he had hands of marvellous skill who- ever first painted Love as a boy? 2 He first saw that lovers live careless of everything, and that great blessings are lost with indifference. Not without a meaning did he add supple pinions, and make the god flit in the human heart. For in truth we lovers toss up and down on the waves, and the breeze that wafts us remains settled nowhere. Rightly, too, is his hand armed with barbed arrows, while his Gnossian quiver hangs from his two shoulders. 3 For he strikes us before we can see the foe and be on our guard, and from that wound no one recovers. In me his darts are left ; the image of the boy is also present, but he has certainly lost his wings ; for he never flies from my breast, and is constantly warring with my heart's blood. What pleasure canst thou find in dwelling in marrowless bones.? if thou hast any feelings of shame, transfer thy darts elsewhere. It were more satisfactory to try that poison of thine on the heart-whole : it is not I, but my emaciated shadow, that is smarting : if you destroy it, who will there be to sing of such subjects ? This muse of mine, low in degree though it is, is a great glory to thee, in that it sings of the head, and the fingers, and the black eyes of my mistress, and of her feet that touch the ground so lightly as she goes. 1 Elegy ///.] An elegant little poem on the symbolism embodied in the popular representations of Love. Paley. * Think you not, &c.] Compare Eubulus ap. Athen. xiii. 562, C. " What man was he who first painted or moulded in wax the winged form of Love ? " A beautiful portraiture of a runaway Love will be found in Moschus i. * Two shoulders.'} " Not that he had two quivers, as Hertzberg remarks, but that the quiver with its strap (amentum) may be said to hang from both shoulders. -But I have some suspicion that the sense is this : the quiver when not in use hung at the back from both shoulders ; when used it was pulled to one side, and so was suspended only i'rom the opposite shoulder. In this case Love holds the barbed arrow ready in his hand, because (quoniam) he aims instantaneously, and does not wait to draw the arrow from the quiver." Paley. 4* PROPERTIUS. ELEGY IV. 1 TO CYNTHIA, [ii. 13.] arms not itself with so many Persian arrows as Love has planted darts in my breast. He forbade me to despise the playful Muses so much, and bade me dwell in the Ascraean grove with this object ; not to have Pierian oaks following me, or to be able to attract wild beasts in the Ismarian valley, 3 but rather that Cynthia may be captivated by my strains, and I then make myself more known by my art than Inachian Linus. 4 I do not admire a fair form only, nor a woman for being able to boast of illustrious ancestors. Mine be the bliss to read my verses on the bosom of a girl of talent, and to submit my writings to the approval of intellectual ears. When this shall be my happy lot, farewell to the vague and contradictory talk of the vulgar ; I shall be safe if my mistress be my judge ; for if she turn a kindly ear to me, and is disposed to friendship, I can then bear the enmity of Jove. Whensoever, therefore, darkness shall have closed my eyes, listen to the instructions you are to observe for my funeral. Let not the procession display a long line of images, and let not the trumpet pour forth a vain lament on my death : let not a bier be laid for me with ivory supports, nor let my body be placed on a couch luxuriously spread. 5 Let there be no line of platters filled with perfumes : let me have but a humble funeral in plebeian style. My procession will be quite, quite large enough if it consists of my three books, which I will give to Persephone as a most handsome present. Follow 1 Elegy IV.] He boasts that his Poems will prevent him from being forgotten : this is followed by reflections on his death. * Itura.] Itura, Paley ; Susa, Kuinoel ; Scrauta, Salmasius ; ( Brouckh. in h. 1.) Codices, Etrusca. Itura is the correction of Pontanus : Ituraea was to the N. E. of Palestine ; its inhabitants were celebrated for archery. See Georg. ii. 448, Itureeos taxi torquentur in arcus. * Ismarian valley.] Ismarus was in Thrace ; Orpheus performed the feat mentioned in the text. 4 Linus.] Son of Apollo, and one of the Muses; there are various traditions concerning his birth and death. * Luxuriously spread.] Attains was king of Pergamus, and left hn immense wealth to the Roman people : hence costly ornaments, furni- ture, &c. are described by the epithet Attalicus. Cf. iii. 24, 12, Auloeu Attalicis. PROPERTIUS. 43 me yourself, beating your bared breast, and cease not to call out my name, and imprint the last kisses on my cold lips when a box 1 filled with perfume from Syria shall be given you. Lastly, when the fire shall have consumed me, let a small urn receive my ashes, and let a laurel be placed on the top of my modest tomb, that its shade may cover the resting-place of the dead, and let two lines be written over me " He who is now lying in unsightly dust was once the slave of Love only." My tomb will not, from this modest inscription, become less known than was the blood-stained grave of the chief of Phthia. 2 And whenever you come to die, remember that you must travel that journey, 3 come, at a ripe age, to my grave, where I shall be waiting for you. Meanwhile, beware of despising me in my tomb : the earth can sometimes feel keenly : and oh that any one of the three sisters had bidden me breathe my last in my cradle. For to what purpose is life to be preserved for so uncertain a period ? Nestor was reduced to ashes after having lived through three generations. 4 Now if in the siege of Troy a Phrygian 5 soldier had cut short his life already far advanced, he would not have seen the corpse of Antilochus r> buried, nor should we find him saying, death, why art thou so late in coming to me ? You, however, will ever grieve at the loss of your friend : it is allowable to love for ever those that are gone. Venus is witness to this, whose fair Adonis a cruel boar once slew when hunting on Idalium's crest : it is said that he lay, in all his beauty, among those marshes, and thither, Venus, it is said that thou didst go with dishevelled hair. But vainly, Cynthia, will you attempt to recall my dumb shade, for what answer will the scanty remains of my bones be able to make ? 1 It would appear that perfumes were burnt by the side of the dead body before it was placed on the pile. See Becker's Callus, scene xii. The onyx was a sort of marble, not the precious stone of that name. 8 Phthia.'] Achilles came from Phthia : Polyxena, the daughter of Hecuba, was sacrificed over his tomb. 3 This line is, probably, corrupt. 4 See Iliad i. 247. 5 Galliciis is the old reading, explained by some to be Phrygian, from Gallus, a river in Phrygia, mentioned in Ovid (Fasti, iv. 364) ; others read Dardanus, Ilivs. Antilochiu } Nestor'o son, who was killed by Memnon. Cf ,'UY. x. 860. 44 PROPERTIES. ELEGY V. 1 [ii. 1*. K-1 THE grandson of Atreus rejoiced not so much in trumph- ing over Troy, on the fall of the great power of Laomedon ; nor was Ulysses so delighted at having brought his wander- ings to an end, and touched the dear shores of Ithaca ; 2 nor did Orestes' sister Electra joy so much on seeing him safe, whose bones she fancied that she had held, to her sorrow ; nor did the daughter of Minos 3 see Theseus with so much delight, after he had made his way safely out of the Labyrinth by means of a clue : the joys of all these were not so great as what I experienced last night : as happy as an immortal shall I be, if I be blessed with another like it. But whilst, in humble guise, I walked with downcast head, I was called more worth- less than a dry tank. 4 No longer does she seek to answer me by cold disdain, nor has she the heart to sit unmoved while I am weeping. Oh that I had not known this treatment so late ! it is offering medicine to a man's ashes. Before my feet, blind that I was, a path was open as clear as day : to be sure, when mad with love no one can see. This is what I have found to answer best : Answer contempt with contempt, lovers ; in this way any mistress that has refused yesterday will come to-day. Others were knocking in vain at her door and calling for my mistress ; the girl was kind to me, and leaned her head on my bosom. This victory is better in my eyes than to conquer the Parthians : this shall be my spoils, this my captive kings, this my triumphal ear. Rich gifts will I place, Cytherea, on thy column : and under my name* 1 Elegy V.~\ He expresses his delight at having won Cynthia's affec- tions, and gives a specific (vs. 19) for lovers situated as he had been. * Thdichia.] Here put for Ithaca, a part of Ulysses' kingdom for the whole. 3 Daughter of Minos.'] Ariadne ; her connexion with Theseus is well known. See Catullus, Ixiv. 1)3. 4 A dry tank.] In volcanic districts, such as the south of Italy, water, being very bad and scarce, was preserved in tanks (Xaeicot) : the disgust of a traveller on finding one of these dry originated the proverbial saying in the text. Paley. * The gift would be accompanied by the words Propertius potuit, and vnder the name the distich would be. Paley. PROPERTItS. 45 shall be a verse like this : "These spoils 1 I, Propertius, place before thy temple, O goddess, for having been received as a lover for a whole night." Now it rests with you, my light, whether my ship is to come safe to shore, or is to be stranded, with its cargo, on the shoals. But if, by any fault of mine, you change to me, may I be found, in death, lying before your door. ELEGY Vl.a [ii. 15. K.] OH happy I ! Oh night, lovely in my eyes ! and oh bed, made happy by my pleasures ! How many soft words we inter- changed when the light was by, how we strove together when it was removed ! Now she wrestled with me with bare breasts : now she covered them with her dress and delayed me. She now opened with a kiss my eyes that were closed in slumber, and said, " Is this the way you mean to lie, sluggard ? " How variously our embracing arms intertwined ! how long did my kisses linger on your lips ! I like not to have the joys of Venus spoiled by darkness. Let me tell you, if you know it not, the eyes are the leaders in Love's warfare. Paris himself is said to have been smitten with love on see- ing Helen naked, as she came from the chamber of Menelaus. Naked, too, Endymion is said to have captivated the sister of Phoebus, and to have slept with a naked goddess. So if you lie down with any clothing on, you shall feel my hands as I tear it from you. Nay, if my passion carry me any further, you will have bruised arms to show to your mother.' Yours are not yet the flaccid breasts that forbid amorous dalli- ance ; let any girl, who is ashamed of being a mother, look here. While the Fates allow, let us feed our eyes with love : a long night is coming for you, and no returning day. Oh that you were willing we should be bound thus close : would that 1 Spoils.] Exuvice signify the favours of Cynthia wrested by Proper- tius from his rivals. Paley. 3 Elegy K/.j The subject is continued from the last Elegy. The poet recounts rather freely his amorous enjoyments, reiterates his profession of ardent affection and fidelity to Cynthia, and extols the pursuits of loT as the best of all human occupations. 46 the Fates might bind us in such a chain ' as ne^ er might be loosed. Take example from a pair of doves, male aud female completely devoted to each other. He that wishes an end to mad passion is wrong : true love can know no bounds. Sooner will the land mock farmers by unnatural produce, and the sun drive his black horses more quickly, the rivers begin to roll their waters to their source, and the fish be strand- ed on the dry channel, than I consent to transfer my pains elsewhere : hers will I be alive, hers will I be in death. But if she consent to grant me such nights as the past, even a year will be a long life for me : if she grant me many, I shall become immortal by them : in a single night any one may be- come equal even to a god. Now if all were willing to live such a life, and to lie overcome with much wine, we should have no pitiless steel, nor ships of war ; the sea off Actium's 2 coast would not toss our bones, nor would Rome, so often beset all round by her own victories, be weary of dishevelling her hair. 3 Posterity may certainly give me this deserved praise, that I have provoked no god by my intemperance. 4 Only, while it is yet day, do not you fail to grant me the joys of life : if you give me all the kisses you can, you will give me too few. Like leaves that drop from the withered garland, and are seen floating every where in the cups, so, perhaps, to- morrow will enclose in the tomb us who now love and hope so much. 1 Such a chain.'] An allusion to the legend of Mars and Venus caught in a wire net by Vulcan. See Odyss. viii. 275, seq. 2 Actium.] Now La Punta, a promontory in Acarnania at the en- trance of the Ambraciot Gulf (G. of Arta) ; celebrated as the scene of the victory gained by Augustus over Antony and Cleopatra, on September 2nd, B. c. 31. 1 Nor would Rome, &c.] " Rome beset all round by its own victories" is a bold figure. Propriis triumphis is interpreted by Kuinoel civilibus victories ; and perhaps propriis may mean de se ipsa reportatis. The idea however is, that its victories have been but so many defeats, and that it has been wearied in weeping for its own citizens. Solvere crines refers to the dishevelled hair of captives. See v. 11, 38. '* Africa tonsa," which relates to the same custom, since either cutting off or letting fall the hair implies the same disregard of personal adornment. Paley. * Intemperance.] Possibly an allusion to Antony's well-kn>wn pro- pensity. PROPERTITTS. 47 ELEGY VII. 1 TO CYNTHIA, pi. 16. K.] THE praetor, Cynthia, a fine prey for you, a source of deepest vexation to me, is just come from the land of Illyria, Could he not have lost his life on the Ceraunian rocks ! Oh Nep- tune, what gifts would I then offer to thee ! Feasting is now going on, and tables are piled high, without me : the gate ia now open all night without me. Wherefore, if you are wise, lose not the chance of the harvest, and pluck the dull brute while his fleece is thick. Then, when he has spent his sub- stance and become poor, bid him sail to some other Illyrias. Cynthia looks not at rank, nor cares for honours : she always weighs a lover's purse. 2 Venus, help me in my woe, and make my rival kill himself by incessant indulgence. So then any one may buy love ? Ye gods, it is for unworthy lucre that a girl loves to perdition. She is constantly sending me to the ocean to look for gems, and bidding me bring her presents from Tyre itself. Oh that no one were rich at Rome, and the emperor himself were content to live in a thatched hut ! Mis- tresses then could not be bought for gold, and we should find a girl becoming grey-headed in her attachment to one man. It is not because you have been away from me for seven nights, with your fair arms encircling so revolting a lover, nor because of this one offence of yours, that I appeal to you, but because, as a general rule, fickleness has always been allied with beauty. A rude lout is now usurping my privileges, and, made happy on a sudden, is in possession of my kingdom. Consider the fatal effect of the present to Eriphyle, 3 and how great the torments with which Creusa 4 1 Elegy F//.] He tells Cynthia that the praetor (i. 8) has returned, and bids her make the most of him, reproaching her for her avaricious disposition. 3 Weighs a lover's pursed] Amatorum ponderat ilia sinus. The bosom of the robe (sinus) was used as a pocket. Covetous Cynthia poises in her hand the money-bag, hung from a lover's neck and concealed in his bosom, and computes its probable value before she accords her favours. Paley has, with a negligence unusual in him, overlooked the plain mean- ing of this passage, and given it this sense : " But no ! my Cynthia carea not for honours, but only for affection." 3 Eriphyle.~\ The wife of Amphiaraus, who, bribed with a necklace by Polynices, betrayed her husband, and was put to death in consequence by Alcmaecn. * Crensa,\ or Glance, the daughter cf Creon, on her marriage witi 4d PROPERTIUS. burnt on her bridal-day. Will no wrongs make me cease my weeping ? Knows not my grief how to part from you, false one ? For so many days I have felt no pleasure in the theatre, no delight in the Campus, none in my poetry. But, certainly, I should be ashamed, yes, ashamed ; unless, as they say, Love, when disgraceful, has generally deaf ears. Look at the leader, 1 who lately filled the Actian waters with empty noise, on his soldiers having been denounced. He was com- pelled, by infatuated love, to turn his ship about and fly, and seek a refuge at the end of the empire. This is the valiant exploit and gallant deed of Caesar : with the hand that con- quered he put an end to war. But all the dresses, emeralds, and chrysolites of gleaming yellow hue that he has given you, may I see fierce storms carry away, and, curses on them, would that they might become earth or water. Jupiter does not always smile placidly at lovers' treacheries, nor turn a deaf ear to prayers. Have you ever heard rumblings all over the sky, and seen deluges from their lofty abode ? They are not caused by the Pleiads, nor by watery Orion, nor does the thunder's wrath fall in that way without a reason : the god then punishes deceitful girls, since even he has been deceived and wept. Prize not, then, a dress of Tyrian dye so much that for its sake you should be filled with fear whenever the south wind brings clouds. ELEGY VIII.' TO CYNTHIA, [ii. 17. K.] To cheat a lover of an appointed night, and to cajole him by promises, is as bad as to have one's hands stained with blood. Such an event I foretell, as often as, in my solitude, I pass bitter nights, tossing and bruising my limbs from side to side of the bed. 3 Though you may be moved at the lot of Tantalus, that he stands in the stream, and the water mocks his parched and thirsty throat, and recedes from his lips ; or Jason, received a dress from Medea, by which she was set on fire. See Eur. Med. 11361230. 1 The leader.] Antony. * Elegy VIII."] He complains that Cynthia has broken an assignation. * The bed.] Beds that were destined for two persons had different names for the two sides: the side ai which they entered was open and called sponda, or torus exterior ; the other side was protected by a board* and ca^ed pluteus, or t. interior. See Martial, iii. 91. PROPERTITJS. 49 you may wonder at the toil of Sisyphus, and at his rolling his toilsome load all up the mountain ; yet there is no living thing on earth whose case is harder than a lover's, nor any- thing you would less wish to become, if wise. I whose fe- licity was the town's talk, Envy herself being lost in wonder at it, am now scarcely admitted to your presence once every ten days. I would now fain throw myself, unnatural one, down a precipice, or take a dose of poison into my hand. And I cannot sleep in the street under a waning moon, or whisper through a chink in the door. Still, however things may be, I will beware of leaving her for another : she will weep when she knows that there is constancy in me. ELEGY IX. 1 TO CYNTHIA, [ii. 18. K.] WITH many women constant complaining produces dislike : a woman is often bent by a silent man : if you have seen any thing, always deny it ; or if you have felt any pain, say that you have felt none. What if I were now growing old, and my hair waxing grey, and a wrinkle, slowly but surely traced, were making a furrow in my cheek ? Aurora did not despise the old Tithonus, and suffer him to lie unheeded in her orient abode. Often, in her watery home, she embraced him at start- ing, before briskly washing her yoked steeds. 2 Often when, after having embraced him, she retired to the neighbouring Indians to rest, she complained that the days came again too soon, and called the gods unjust as she mounted her chariot, and unwillingly discharged her duties on the earth. Her de- light in the aged living Tithonus was greater than her grief at the death of Memnon. a A damsel like her was not 1 Elegy 7X.] The poet continues to reproach Cynthia with her cruel treatment of him, and ends by again urging her not to be so anxious about personal appearance. * Aurora's abode was feigned to lie in the sea, so that her horses would have a plunge on their voyage from the submarine stabulum in which they had passed the night. Patey. * Tithonus, &c.} Tithonus was the son of Laomedon, and by the prayers of Eos (Aurora) who loved him obtained immortality but not eternal youth, in consequence of which he shrivelled away in his old age, whence a decrepit man was called Tithonus, as in Ar. Ach. 688, dvdpa TiGtavov ffTrapdrTuv nai rapdrrw KO.I KVKWV, see Schol. in loc. Their son Memnon was killed by Achilles and wept for night and rnoxiiiiig by his mother, whose tears are said to be the morning dew-drop* 50 PROPER-TIPS. ashamed to sleep vith an old man, and to be kissed so often by one with a hoary head. But you, perfidious one, hate me though in my prime ; and though at no distant day you will become a bent old woman. I may console myself, however, by remembering that Cupid is often wont to be cruel to him to whom he has once been kind. Do you even now, in your madness, imitate the woad-stained Britons, and pursue your dalliance witli your head dyed with shining juice of foreign herbs ? A form left as Nature made it, is always comely : on a Roman face a Belgian cosmetic l is disgraceful. Under the earth may great woe come to every girl that is silly enough to put on false hair or dye her own. As regards me, you will always have it in your power to seem fair ; yes, fair enough for me, if you come to me often enough. Suppose it were the fashion to dye one's temples with indigo, would a blue com- plexion be therefore comely ? You have no brother and no son, and I, in myself, am son and brother to you. Let your own bed by which you are pledged to me be your keeper, and do not aim at appearing too highly dressed. I must believe the character that report gives of you, so beware of going wrong : report passes over both land and sea. ELEGY X.* TO CYNTHIA, [ii. 19. K.] ALTHOUGH, Cynthia, you are leaving Rome against my will, yet I rejoice that you court the beauties of the seques- tered fields without me. In the innocent country you will have no young gallant to prevent you, by blandishments, from continuing chaste ; there will be no brawls before your win- dows, nor will your sleep be made uneasy by hearing your name called out ; you will be alone, Cynthia, and will behold the lonely mountains, and the cattle, and the domain of a poor Ov. Met. xiii. 622. In vs. 12, the Indians are called vicini, as living near the Eoa domus of Aurora. 1 Belgian cosmetic."] What this means is not exactly known : some suppose it to be Dutch soap, as in Martial, viii. 33, 20, Mutat Latiaa sjntma Batata comas. Why not rouge? * Elegy X.] Addressed to Cynthia on her contemplated excursion into the country, and written in a cheerful and affectionate tone, which presents a strong contrast with his anxiety at her absence at Baiaj, (i. 11.) A very elegnnt poem, and displaying a fine sense of the beauties of nature. to which Humboldt (Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 15) considers the Romans in general to have been but little sensitive. Paley. PROPERTIES. 51 farmer. There no games will be able to corrupt vou. nor any temples, chief causes of your sins. There you will constantly look on the oxen as they plough, and at the vine shedding its leaves under the skilfully-plied pruning-knife ; there, too, you will occasionally offer incense in a rude chapel, where a country-reared kid will fall before the altars ; unrestrictedly shall you dance with bared leg, like the rustics, provided that all your beauties be safe from a rival's eye. I myself shall turn hunter ; even now it delights me to enter Diana's service and quit that of Venus. I shall begin to snare the wild beasts, and hang their horns on the pine, and with my own voice to chide the unruly dogs ; not that I shall go so far as to attack great lions, or swiftly pursue and grapple with wild boars. Let my bold attempts be confined, then, to lying in wait for timid hares, and piercing birds with ready arrow, where Clitumnus shrouds its stream between its wood-crowned banks, and where its waves wash the oxen white. 1 As often, my life, as you think of any mischief, recollect that I shall be coming to you in a few days. You see thus that neither the solitude of your woods, nor streams flowing ai random over mossy heights, can turn me away from constantly having your name on my tongue: in my absence may no one think of wronging me. ELEGY XI. 2 TO CYNTHIA, [ii. 20. K.] WHY do you weep more bitterly than Briseis when she was taken away ? Why do you weep more sadly than the woe- worn captive Andromache ? Why, foolish one, weary the gods about the wrong that I have done you ? Why complain that my faith has given way ? The mournful Attic bird pours not forth her complaints so vehemently by night in Cecro- pian trees, nor does over- weening Niobe 3 shed tears so anxiously on Mount Sipylus over the tombs of her twelve children. Though they bind my arms with knots of brassj 1 Wash the oxen white.'] By drinking the water of the Glitumnua. cows were believed to produce white calves, so much required for sacri fices. This tradition was still current in the time of Boccaccio. * Elegy XI.] A reply to Cynthia's expostulations on the poet's in' fidelities. * Niobe,"] She presumed to rival Latona, whereupon her children, and afterwards she herself, were turned into stone. Sipylus was ir Phry* gia. one of the sons of Niobe was also of this naim. E 3 52 PROPERTIUS. and though my body be even hid in a prison like Danae'a, yut, for you, my life, will burst even chains of brass, and break out of Danae's prison. Whatever is said about you falls unheeded on my ears ; do you only doubt not of my con- stancy. I swear to you by the bones of my father and mother, if I am deceiving you, may the ashes of either lie heavily en me ! that I will remain faithful to you, my life, till dark- ness finally come over my eyes ; the same day shall witness the death of both of us, constant to the last. But if neither you nor your beauty could keep me, the gentleness of your bondage would suffice. The seventh full moon is now rapidly approaching since all the streets have been ringing about you and me ; meanwhile your door has been often kindly opened to me, often have I been admitted to your embrace ; and I have not bought a single night with rich gifts ; whatever I was to you, I was through your fond affection. While so many were wooing you, you alone wooed me : can I forget your kindness ? Should I do so, may the tragic furies torment me ; may JEacus condemn me in the shades below, and may I be preyed on by vultures like Tityos, and roll stones with toil like Sisyphus. Address me not beseechingly with suppliant let- ters ; my constancy to my last hour shall be what it was from the first. This is my constant privilege to be the only lover that does not soon tire, nor rashly become smitten. ELEGY XII. 1 [ii. 21. K.] AH ! may Venus be unfriendly to Panthus in the same degree as he, in his letters to you, slandered me ! But do I now seem to you a truer seer than Dodona ? Your fine lover has taken a wife. So many nights have been quite thrown away ! Is he not ashamed ? See, he sings in his freedom : you, who believed him too easily, are lying alone. And now you are a by- word for the pair ; he, in his mightiness, will say that you were often at home for him against his will. May I perish, if anything else than triumph over you is what he is looking for: now that he is married, he prides himself on this. It was thus that Jason, her guest, deceived the Colchian maid : she was cast off, for Creusa became his wife. It was thus 1 Elegy XII.'] The poet plumes himself on having predicted the in- fidelity <>f oue Panthus, who had won Cynthia's favours, and then leflt her PROPERTIU8. 53 that Calypso was forsaken by the Dulichian hero : she saw her lover spread his sails. O maidens, too easy in lending an ear, learn when you are deserted, not to be kind so readily. This mistress of mine, too, left forlorn, has this long time been looking for another lover, 1 that is left her. You may take warning, foolish girl, from your experience of the first. In every place, at all times, we are yours alike, whether you are ill or well. ELEGY XIII.* [ii. 22. K.] DEMOPHOON, you know that, yesterday, many girls pleased me equally, and you know that many woes are coming upon me : I walk no streets without suffering : O theatres, too fatally made for my destruction ! If a girl spread her fair arms in graceful motion, or trill forth varied notes of melody, or if a fair damsel sit with bosom not entirely covered, or if there stray over a snowy brow truant locks, confined on the crown by an Indian gem, my eyes at once look for some object to smite them fatally. If one of the damsels had looked at all sternly and forbiddingly on me, a stream like cold water began to trickle all over my face. Do you ask, Demophoon, why I am so tenderly disposed to all? No love has a why 3 in it. Why does many a votary gash his arms with hallowed knives, and cut himself to the maddening music of a Phry- gian flute. 4 Nature gives to every one some failing : my destiny has given me the failing of always loving some- thing ; and though I be overtaken by the fate of the seer Thamyras, 5 yet, to beauty, O envious one, I shall never be blind. But if my limbs appear to you thin and emaciated, you are mistaken : the service of Venus is not toilsome. Jest as you please : often has my bed-fellow found me effective in 1 Another lover.'] Her friend the Praetor. Supr. El. 7. 2 Elegy X///.] In an address to an imaginary friend, the poet con- fesses his own weaknesses, and discourses on love-cares generally. * A why.'] Propertius here repeats, in another form, the cur of the preceding line : cf. 17, '2, Excludit quoniam sors mea Scepe Veni. Per- sius, v. 87, Licet illud et ut volo totte, * A Phrygian flute.~\ This alludes to the priests of Cybelc. See the Atys of Catullus. 5 Thamyras.'] A Thracian bard, struck blind for presuming, in his conceit, that he could surpass the Muses in song. Milton (P. L. iii. 36) mentions him as blind Thamyris. 54 PROPERTIUS. < my duty all night long. Jupiter lay in bed two nights for Alcmena's sake, and twice by night was the sky without a king : yet he did not therefore resume his thunderbolts with a feeble grasp : no love wastes its own strength. What ? when Achilles had just left the embrace of Brisei's, were the Phrygians less scared at the Thessalian darts ? What ? when the valiant Hector arose from the bed of Andromache, were the Argive ships not afraid of the war ? The one could de- stroy a fleet, the other a city's wall : in love I am an Achilles and a valiant Hector. In the same way that we see the moon, at one time, the sun at another, attendant on the sky, so one damsel is not enough for me. Let a second hold and cherish me in her eager arms, if one ever refuses me her embrace ; or, if she have been, perchance, angered by my servant, let her know that there is another ready to be mine. For two cables are surer protection to a ship than one ; and a fond mother looks more anxiously after twins. If you are hard- hearted, refuse me ; if not, come to my arms ! What boots it to regard promises as nothing ? l It is a vexation, above all others painful to a lover, if a damsel he is expecting, suddenly refuses to come. How many are the sighs that rack him, as he tosses over the bed, while thinking that some one, a total stranger to her, is admitted to her embrace ! and he wearies his servant with asking him repeatedly questions already an- swered, and bidding him tell, in greater detail, what he fears to learn. ELEGY XIV. 2 [ii. 23. K.] I, WHO once thought that this path, which I pursue in common with the unlearned rabble, was to be shunned, now find water drawn from the common tank to be sweet. Is a gentleman to bribe another's servant to carry to his mistress the message that he promised ? And is he to ask times out of number "what portico is sheltering her, I wonder?" and, " In which Campus is she walking ? " and then, after having endured labours such as fame gives to Hercules, is he to have her writing, " Have you any present for me?" To be blessed with the sight of a cross keeper, and, if observed, to lurk in a 1 What boots it, &c.] I would read In nullo ponere verba loco. 9 Elegy A'/F.J The pride of high-born woman is contrasted with tht facile compliance of the lower classes. PROPEKTITT8. 53 filthy hovel? How dearly does a night come round once a year ! Perish all they that are pleased with closed doors ! On the other hand, a woman that walks out boldly, without muffling her face, and surrounded by no terrible guardians, pleases : one who often paces the Sacred Way with dirty shoe, and is coy to no admirer ; she will never abuse you, nor worry you, with many a word, for what your cross-grained father will often weep that you have given her ; nor will she say " I am afraid ; make haste, I beg ; luckless one, my husband comes home from the country to-day!" May the women sent by the Euphrates 1 and the Orontes continue to please me ; I care not for a modest nuptial embrace. Since a man, on falling in love, has no liberty left from that moment, if a man chooses to love, he must give up all idea of freedom. ELEGY XV. 2 [ii. 24. K.] '' Do you talk, 3 when, now that your book is known, you are a by -word, and your Cynthia has been read all over the forum ?" Whose brow can fail to burst out with perspiration at words like these? Men of birth 4 must submit to shame, or keep their love secret. Now if Cynthia were as favourable to me as I could wish, I should not have the reputation of being an arch-profligate ; nor should I be scandalized ant' become notorious all over the city, nor be annoyed, 5 though, by concealing her name, I thought to deceive. Wonder not then at my resorting to the common women ; they abuse me less : think you that a slight reason ? At one time, besides, she wants to have a fan made of a flaunting peacock's feathers, and a ball 6 for cooling her hands, and wants to ask me, though she sees me angry, to buy for her ivory dice, and the cheap frippery displayed in the Sacred Way. May I perish 1 May the women, &c.] The Syrian women were very debauched. Cf. Juv. iii. 62 seq., Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes. Et vexit .... ad circum jussas prostare puellas. 2 Elegy XF.] He excuses himself for his infidelity to Cynthia, on the ground of her caprice. * Doyoutalkf] Cogitandus est amicus, Propertio haec objiciens. Weber. * Men of birth.] Ingenuws : libri omnes : Paley, ingenm's. 5 Be annoyed.] Paley reads Urerer et quamvis nomine verba daretn : Kuinoel, ureret. A comma at et seems to make the passage plainer. * A ball, &c.l What this was does not appear to be known ; perhap* a piece of rock-crystal. See Paley. 56 PROPERTIUS. if I care for those extravagances, but I am at last ashamed of being a jest to a deceitful mistress. ELEGY XVI.' [ii. 24 cont. K.] So this is what you bade me be particularly pleased at ? Is not a woman so fair as you ashamed at being fickle ? I have scarcely spent one or two nights with you, and you say that you are tired of me. You used to praise me once, and to read my poems ; has that lover of yours changed your behaviour so soon ? Let him rival me in ability ; first of all let him learn to love one only ; let him be ready, if it be your will, to go and engage with Lernsean hydras, and to bring you apples from the dragon of Hesperus ; let him drain bitter poison readily, and shipwrecked gulp down the waves, and never deny that he is undergoing that misery for you. Oh that you would try the same toils on me, my life ; soon will you find among the cowards that boaster who has now, by his arrogance, come into full-blown honour ; next year will part you and him. But neither a period as long as the Sibyl's age, nor toil like Alcides', nor the great day of gloom, shall change me. You will lay my bones in the grave, and will say : " These are thy bones, Propertius : thou, alas, alas, wast faithful to me. Faithful thou wast, alas, alas, though neither of noble birth nor so very rich." I will endure anything ; a wrong never changes me ; I think the bearing with a fair maid no burden. I believe that no small number have pined with love for that form ; but I also believe that many had no faith in them. For a short time Theseus loved the daughter of Minos, and Demophoon 2 Phyllis, each a treacherous guest. Long ago you have Medea carried away in Jason's vessel, 3 and left desolate by the man she had just saved. Hard-hearted is she that pretends love for many, and any woman that can 1 Elegy XVI.] He desires Cynthia to try his fidelity against that of her present favourite. * Demophoon.] The son of Theseus and Phaedra : on his return from Troy, Phyllis, the daughter of Sithon, king of Thrace, fell in love with iiim. Before marriage he went to Attica, and Phyllis, thinking, from his prolonged absence, that she was forgotten, hanged herself and was changed into an almond-tree. With vs. 28, cf. Ovid, Her. ii. 1, Hospitf., Demo- phoon, tua te, Rhodopeia Phyllis, Ultra promissum tempus abesse queror and also Ar. Am. iii. 38. * Paley reads lasonia tutiota est. PROPERTIUS. 57 array herself as a bride for many. Compare me not with the noble ; compare me not with the rich ; scarcely one of them comes to gather his mistress's bones at the last day. I will be to you instead of those ; but I rather pray that you may be- wail me with bared breasts and dishevelled hair. ELEGY XVII. 1 [ii. 25. K.] O THOU sole object of my care, fairest cause of my sorrow, since my lot shuts out all hope of "Come often;" 2 that form of thine shall become most celebrated by my writings, with thy consent, Calvus, and thy leave, Catullus. 3 The soldier, when full of years, lays down his arms and retires, the time-worn oxen refuse to drag the plough, the rotten ship rests on the desert shore, and the war-shield, when battered with age, hangs at ease in the temple ; but from thy love no old age shall part me, live 1 as long as Tithonus or Nestor. Were it not better however to serve the stern tyrant, and to groan in the bull, made by thee, cruel Perillus ? 4 it were better, too, to have been turned into stone by the Gorgon's look ; nay, even to have endured vultures on Mount Caucasus. But still will I continue firm : an iron spear-point wears away with rust, and a flint-rock by re- peated drops of water. But love is not worn away 5 by ever 1 Elegy XVI I.] The poet, after declaring that the love-pangs caused to him by Cynthia, have been most terrible, declares his constancy to her, and warns her present favourite not to plume himself on his victory ; con- cluding with lashing male flirts. * Come often.} " Excludit quoniam sors mea Sape veni. Jacob. Scepe veni is used as a substantive here as Quare supr. 13, 14. Kuinoel has excludi, a comma at sape, and vents. Lemaire marks the passage as corrupt: the reading of Jacob, adopted by Weber, Paley, and Weise, (Tauchn. Classics,) is undoubtedly correct. * He apologizes for using the word notissima, implying that Cynthia would be more known than Quintilia or Lesbia. Calvus was the cele- brated lawyer, orator, and poet, alluded to in Catull. liv. ; Ov. Am. iii. 9, 61. 4 Perillus.'] A cunning artificer in brass, who made for Phalarii, tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily, a bull, to be used as a means of torture for criminals, a fire having been lighted under the figure after they had been put inside. As a reward Phalaris ordered the experiment to be first made on Perillus. Hence Ovid, Ar. Am. i. 653, Phalaris tauro violent! membra Perilli, Torruit : infelix imbuit auctor opus. * At tvdlo domintB teritur sub limine amor qui. Paley. 58 PROPERTIUS. so much sleeping near the threshold of a mistress : it remains constant, and submits to unmerited threats. Though despised, it makes overtures of forgiveness; though hurt, confesses that it was in the wrong ; and returns of itself, though its feet are unwilling. 1 Thou, too, credulous one, that, in the fulness of thy amorous fortune, puttest on an air of pride, remember that no woman has constancy in her long. Does any one pay vows in the middle of a storm, when even in port a ship is often wrecked ? Or does any one claim the prize before a race is finished, before the wheel of his chariot has grazed the goal for the seventh time ? 2 Fallacious are the breezes that seem to blow favourably in love : if a fall be late in coming, it is great when it does come. Do thou, meanwhile, though she may love thee, yet keep thy joy shut up in the silence of thy heart. For in a love-affair it happens, I know not how, that a man's proudest words always do him harm. Though she invite thee repeatedly, be careful to go only once: that which excites envy does not generally last long. But if the times of old, and the girls who lived in them, were still in vogue, I should be what thou art now : I am conquered by the times. They shall not however change my principles : let each one know how to follow out his own path. But as for you that often transfer your attentions from one love to an- other, how much does the pain, so caused, torture your eyes ! You see a delicate maid exquisitely fair ; you see a brunette ; either hue attracts you. You see a maid of Grecian form ; you see our own country-women ; the beauty of each captivates you. Be a girl clad in purple, or in plebeian garb ; each of them, individually, inflicts a smarting wound : since one maid brings quite enough sleeplessness to your eyes, let one be sufficient evil to every one. 1 Cf. Ovid, Rem. Am. 217, Quanto minus ire voles, magis ire me- mento : Perfice, et invitos currere coge pedes. * The seventh time.'] In the Greek stadium and Roman circus the racers took seven turns round the pillar (meta), the proximity to which of the wheel is implied by terere. See Soph. Ell. 726. Sueton. Dotnit. 4, Missus singulos a septenis spatiis ad quina corripuit. PROPERTIUS. 59 ELEGY XVIII. 1 [ii. 26. K.] I SAW thee, my life, in a dream, wearily plying thy hands in the Ionian sea, after the wreck of thy ship ; and confessing all the falsehoods that thou hadst told me ; and no longer able to raise thy head, heavy with sea-water, and tossed on the purple waves of the sea like Helle, 2 who was carried on his downy back by the golden ram. How afraid I was lest the sea, perchance, should bear thy name, and the mariner weep, as he passed over water called after thee ! How many were the vows that I made to Neptune, to Castor and his brother, and to thee, Leucothoe, 3 once a mortal, now a goddess ! Thou, with difficulty raising the tops of thy fingers from the water, calledst, now at the point of death, continually on my name. If Glaucus had chanced to see thy eyes, thou wouldst have been made a Nymph of the Ionian main : and the Nereids, fair Nesaee, 4 azure Cymothoe, 5 would be carping at thee from jealousy. But I saw rushing to thy aid the dolphin, that, I suppose, had carried the harper Arion. 6 I was endeavouring to throw myself from the top of a rock, when fear awoke me and dispelled the vision. 7 Now let people admire the attach- ment to me of so fair a maid, and let me be styled powerful by all the town. If the wealth of Cambyses and Croesus 8 were to be offered to her, she would not say, Begone, poet, from my couch. For when she repeats my lays, she says that she 1 Elegy XV III.] Propertius gives an account of a dream of his, in which Cynthia had been shipwrecked, and he had tried to save her : his object is to deter her from proceeding on a contemplated voyage, though at the same time he professes his willingness to accompany her. * Helle.] She was the daughter of Athamas and Nephele, and was saved, with her brother Phryxus, by the ram with the golden fleece, from the sacrifice awaiting her brother, but fell into the sea between Sigeium and the Chersonese, which was afterwards called "EXXjjc TTOVTOC. See Ovid, Her. xviii. 137. * Leucothoe.] ( Matuta, Inc.) She threw herself, to avoid the rage of her husband Athamas, into the sea, and was afterwards, with Melicerta or Glaucus, her son, worshipped as a sea-goddess. 4 Cf. Georg. iv. 338. 5 Mn. i. 144. See Hdt. i. 23. Ovid, Fast, ii. 83118. T Cf. Ovid, Her. x. 13, Excussere metus somnum : conterrita svrgo. 8 Croesus.] Croesus, afterwards conquered by Cyrus, father of Cam- byses, was king of Lydia, in which was the Pactolus, so celebrated fo/ iw golden sands. 60 PROl'ERTIUS. nates wealthy lovers : no girl respects poetry so deeply. In love constancy and fidelity avail much : he that can make many presents, may love many maids. If my girl propose to cross the wide ocean, I will go with her, and one breeze shall waft us, faithful pair. One bed shall serve for us when asleep, one tree for an abode ; we will always drink from the same cup, and a single plank shall form the couch for us lovers, be the prow or the stern my bed-chamber. All hard- ships will I go through : let the blustering east wind rage, and the chilly south drive the ships before it, and all ye winds may blow that troubled the unfortunate Ulysses, and a thou- sand Grecian ships on the Euboean shore. 1 And ye that moved two continents when a dove 2 was sent forward on the un- known sea to guide the inexperienced Argo : only let her never be out of my sight, even though Jupiter strike the vessel. Of a surety we will lie exposed, side by side, on the shore : the wave may toss me, if but a little sand cover thee. But Neptune is not unkind to love like ours : Neptune is as great a lover as his brother Jupiter : witness the deflowering of Amymone 3 in Argos while carrying water, and Lerne's lake, made by the trident's stroke. The god granted her wish at the price of her embraces, and her golden urn gushed with water sent by a god. The rape of Orithyia 4 has shown that Boreas is not cruel to lovers : Love is a god that lays low the powers of earth and the mighty seas. Scylla, believe me, will be gentle to us, and so will vast Charybdis, 5 and never swallow up our ship with any alternate wave. The stars, too, 1 At Aulis. 2 A dove.] The duo litora are Symplegades or closing islands : they used to unite and crush to pieces every ship that attempted to pass the channel between them. The Argonauts, on coming to them, sent forward a dove, by the advice of Juno, and by passing through immediately after the rocks had parted, and before they could again close, escaped with only the loss of their rudder. 3 Amymone.] She was the daughter of Danaus, on -whose arrival at Argos the country was suffering from drought ; Amymone was sent for water by her father, and while so engaged, was met by Neptune, em- braced, and directed to the well at Lerne, which, according to another version of the tradition, he made to gush out of a rock which he had pierced with his trident, after having hurled it at a Satyr who waa mo- lesting Amymone. 4 Orithyia.] See note on i. 20, 31. 1 Charybdis.] See Odyssey, xii. 105. PROPERTIUS. 61 themselves, will be shrouded in no darkness: Orijn and the Kids l will be clear. But if my life must be given up in try- ing to save you, I shall come to no inglorious end. ELEGY XIX. 8 [ii. 27. K.] You mortals are ever uncertain of the hour of your death, and of the way by which death is to come ; and you explore the sky's clear face for the Phoenician discovery : 3 what star is lucky for a man, and what unlucky, whether he is bound for the land of the Parthians on foot or of the Britons by sea, and has before him the uncertain perils of a journey by sea or land. You weep at turmoil again raging round your head, when Mars brings two hostile bands together. You are afraid of fire in your house, or of its falling, and lest poisoned cups reach your lips. The lover alone knows when, and by what death, he is to perish ; he fears neither the blasts of Boreas nor the battle-fray. Even though he be sitting, with oar in hand, under the Stygian reed-bed, and be looking upon the melancholy sails of the infernal bark, if but a flying glimpse of his mistress recall him, even though doomed to die, he will be allowed to return from a journey to which all are liable. ELEGY XX. [ii. 28. K.] JUPITER, have pity, at length, on a suffering girl ; the death of one so fair will be a disgrace to thee. For the season 1 The Kids.'] The Kids heralded a storm on their rising, which -was about the 6th of October. See Georg. i. 205; ^neid, ix. 658; Hor. Od. iii. 1, 27. 3 Elegy X/X.] The lover alone knows that he is doomed to die with love for his mistress, a spell powerful enough to revive him even at death's door. 3 The Phoenicians.'] The Chaldeans generally had the reputation of being the discoverers of Astrology. Propertius attributes the origin of that art to the Phoenicians in consequence of their well-known skill w. navigating by observation of the stars. 4 Elegy XX.] This beautiful poem was written on an occasion o* Cynthia's dangerous illness. Nothing can be more refined and tastefw than the mythological allusions by which he at once compliments and consoles her. At the same time he warns her that sickness is sent as a punishment for broken vows. Paley. According to Hertzberg's chrono- logical arrangement of the poems, the present one was written later tb*a A. u. c. 729, and before 732. 62 PROPERTIUS. is come l when the air is scorchingly hot, and the land is be ginning to glow beneath the parching dog-star. But the fault lies not so much in the heat, or in the sky, as in the frequent contempt cast on the sanctity of the gods. This it is that destroys hapless maidens, this has destroyed them in times past ; all their vows are carried away by the wind and water. Has Venus herself been incensed that you have com- pared your beauty with hers ? She is a hostile goddess to those who surpass her in beauty. Have you despised the shrine of Pelasgic Juno, or ventured to deny that the eyes of Pallas are handsome ? 2 You fair ones never know how to govern your tongues ; this malady has been brought upon you by your talking and your beauty. But to you who are now suffering the vexations and the many perils of life, a gentler time will come with your last day. When lo's head was metamorphosed, she lowed in her youth ; now she is a goddess, whereas she once drank, as a cow, of the water of the Nile. Ino, too, was a wanderer on earth in her early years ; her now, as Leucothoe, the distressed mariner implores. Andromeda had been made the prey of sea-monsters ; she afterwards became the glorious wife of Perseus. Callisto 3 had wandered, as a bear, through Arcadian lands ; as a star she now directs the ships by night. But should the Fates bring you speedily to your last rest, happy will be your lot after burial ; you will be able to tell Semele 4 of the danger to which a fair woman is exposed ; she will believe you, being taught by her own misfortune ; and you will have with unanimous consent the first place among the Nymphs sung by Homer, and the Heroines. Now that you are stricken, bear with fate as well as you may : the divine will, and even the day of doom, can be altered. 1 For the season is come.] The unhealthiness of Rome in summer an ' This legend is not recorded by any other writer PROPERTIUS. 69 flocks of his fold. This was seen by the troops of Hamadryad sisters, and old Sileni, and the sire of the troop, with whom, Paris, you gathered apples in Ida's grot, catching in your hand gifts dropped into it by the Naiad (Enone. Among such a swarm of immodest women does any one ask, " Why is this girl so rich ? who made her the presents ? whence got she them ? " Oh ! too happy would Rome be in cur time if one girl were to act contrary to custom ! Before Cynthia, Lesbia did the same as she : l one that follows a bad example is, surely, less to be blamed. Any man that looks for men like the primitive Tatius, 2 and the hardy Sabines, has but lately set foot in our city. You would be able to drain the sea, and count the stars on high with mortal hand, sooner than make our girls dislike sinning : that was the custom in king Saturn's reign, and when Deucalion's flood was on the earth, and after the flood of Deucalion renowned in story. Tell me, who has been able to preserve the bed undefiled ? What goddess has lived faithful to one god ? The wife of mighty Minos in days gone by, so men say, was smitten by the handsome form of a grim bull. In like manner, Danae, 3 wb^n surrounded by a wall of brass, could not say no, though chaste, to the great Jupiter. But if you admire the profligate Greek and Roman women, live free, for ever, from my censure. ELEGY XXV. [ii. 33. K.] THE dreary ceremony is now coming again, to my sorrow ; Cynthia has by this time engaged to keep ten nights. 5 May the daughter of Inachus perish, for introducing ceremonies for Ausonian women from the warm Nile ! The goddess, whoever she may have been, that has so often parted eager lovers, has always been odious to me. You, lo, when Jove It is not impossible that the poet, -who has elsewhere erred in his mytho- logy (see vs. 4, 40,) has confounded Paris with Anchises. Paley. 1 Lesbia.] The mistress of Catullus. * Tatius.l The king of the Sabines in the time of Romulus. 3 Danae.] Jupiter descended to her in a golden shower. * Elegy XXV.] After abusing Isis, by ceremonies in whose honour he is debarred from Cynthia's company, the poet entreats his mistress to be kind to him, ridiculing, at the same time, her taste for debauchery and loose company. * Ten nights.] See supr. 20, 61. 70 PROPERTIUS. was secretly in love with you, felt what it was to wander over many ways, when Juno forced you, maiden as you were, to have horns, and to lose your human voice, and speak but in the rude cry of an animal. How often have you hurt your mouth with oak-leaves ! how often, after feeding, have you been shut up in solitude in your stall ! Have you become proud as a goddess because Jupiter stripped you of your beast's look ? Is not Egypt, with its swarthy denizens, enough for you ? Why did you come all the long way to Rome ? What good is it to you to see girls sleeping by themselves ? You will have horns again, mark my words ; or else we will drive you out of our city, cruel one ; the Nile has never been on friendly terms with the Tiber. Let me, however, with you whom I have softened with great pain and grief to my- self, when released from these nightly engagements, enjoy a fill of love. You hear me not, and suffer my words to be laughed at, when the oxen of Icarus l are now slowly turning the stars to the morning. You sit long at your wine ; midnight moves you not ; is your hand not yet weary of throwing the dice ? Perish he who introduced neat wine, and he who was the first to mix wholesome water with nectar ! O Icarus, fitly slain by Attic shepherds, thou knowest how fatal is the smell of wine. Thou, too, O Centaur Eurytion, 2 didst perish by wine, and thou, O Polyphemus, 3 by the juice of Thracian grapes. By wine beauty is lost ; by wine man's prime is spoilt ; through wine a mistress often forgets her protector. Ah me ! deep draughts of wine affect her not ; well, go on drinking ; you are beautiful still ; wine harms you not, when your gar- lands droop, and fall forward into your cup, and you read my poems in a drawling tone. Let your table flow more liberally with Falernian, and let it froth more delicately in your golden chalice I But no one retires with good will to her solitary 1 Icanu.] A king of Attica who received from Bacchus bags filled with wine, which he distributed freely, giving it, amongst others, to some shepherds, who killed him, thinking that they were poisoned. He was placed in heaven by Bacchus, and is the same as Bootes or Arcturus, commonly called Charles's Wain. 1 Eurytion.] See note on ii. 2, 9. 1 Polyphemu*.] Ulysses made Polyphemus drunk, and then put out his one eye, and slew him. See Horn. Odyss. ix. passim, and Eur. CycL 411 M 1-ROPEETIUS. 71 couch. There is something that Love forces you to miss. There is always a more favourable disposition towards absent lovers ; long possession lowers the value even of the devoted. ELEGY XXVI. 1 TO XYNCEUS. [ii. 34. K.] How is it that any one continues to intrust the person of his mistress to Love ? In that way I have nearly had my girl snatched from me. I speak from experience ; no one is faith- ful in a love matter. Not seldom does every one look after a beautiful woman as his own prize. That god sets at defiance laws of kinship, parts friends, and drives to arms perfect friends. A guest came to the hospitable house of Menelaus, and proved an adulterer ; and did not the Colchian maid follow a stranger ? Lynceus, traitor, could you meddle with my dar- ling ? did not your hands then fall powerless ? Suppose she had not been as faithful and true as she was, could you have lived, and been so guilty? Stab me to the heart, o'r poison me if you please ; only keep off from my mistress. You shall be my most intimate friend, and closest companion ; I admit you, my friend, as a master over my property ; from my mistress, from my mistress only, I beg you keep away ; I cannot bear even Jupiter as a rival. When by myself, I am jealous of my own shadow, a thing of nought ; foolish am I, and foolish the fear with which I often tremble. The only reason for my pardoning so great a sin, is that your tongue erred from excess in wine. Never shall I be deceived by the wrinkle of an ascetic ; all know, now-a-days, how sweet it is to love. Even my friend Lynceus is madly in love in his old age : the only thing on which I hug myself is that you are becoming a votary of my gods. What will your skill in Socratic philosophy avail you now, or your knowledge of the motion of the universe ? Of what i fruit is the reading of the poetry of the Erechthean 2 sage ? | 1 Elegy XXV I. ~\ Lynceus, a fellow poet, and old friend of Propertiu*, had attempted to win Cynthia's affections, for which he takes him to task, advises him, since he has at last fallen in love, to change the style of his writings : the piece ends with a eulogy on Virgil, and an exhortation to Lyn- ceus to follow in the steps of other poets that have sung of their mistresses. 2 The Erechthean sage.] ^Eschylus, born at Eleusis, hence called Erechthean, which is equivalent to Attic. From Ar. Ran. 1046, we see that he confessed to have no love in him, and never wanted any. Soon read Crettei of Epimenides. 72 PROPERTIUS. Your aged authority is of no use in a violent love. It would be better for you to imitate Philetas, 1 the favourite of the Muses, and the dreams 2 of the not turgid Callimachus. For though you treat of the streams of the ^Etolian Achelous, and how the river flowed when conquered in a severe love contest, 3 and how the deceitful wave of Masander strays over the Phry- gian plains, and thwarts its own progress, 4 and how Arion,* the speaking horse of Adrastus, was a melancholy conqueror at the funeral games of Archemorus ; 6 the melancholy de- struction of the chariot of Amphiaraus 7 is of no use to you, nor the fall of Capaneus 8 that pleased the mighty Jove. Cease also to write verses after the style of .ZEschylus, 9 cease, and let your limbs indulge in the soft dance. Begin now to confine your strains within a narrower range, and come, grave poet, to describe your own love-fires. You will not live safer 1 Philetas.] A poet of Cos, who lived about B. r. 272 ; his poetry was chiefly elegiac, devoted to the praise of his mistress Bittis (or Battis, Ovid, Trist. i. 6, 2, Nee tantum Coo Battis amata suo) ; he is mentioned by Theocr. (vii. 39) as his model. Lachmann, as the form Batto is found in this line, reads Tu, Battus, &c., " Imitate in thy song Philetas the chronicler of Batto :" compare Argus (supr. 18, 39). a The dreams, &c.j By somnia, Barth and Paley understand the Atria of Callimachus, (for which see Blomfield's Callim. p. 172,) so call- ed because he pretended that the subject of it was suggested to him in a dream. Prop, calls Callim. non inflati, to acquit his favourite poet of the common and not altogether unjust charge of being inclined to bom- bast. See ii. 1, 40, Intonet angusto pectore Callimachus, which expresses precisely the same idea. 3 Love contest.~\ The river-god Achelous fought with Hercules for Deianira. See Soph. Track, ad init. Thwarts its own progress.} By the excessively tortuous manner of its course. 5 Arion was the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter. Adrastus received him from Hercules. (Hes. Scut. Here. 120.) Statius ( Theb. vi. 417) calls him prcesagus, and in the following lines a description of his conduct in a race is given. For another instance of a horse speaking, see Iliad xix 404 seq. Archemorus.'] Son of Lycurgus king of Nemea. When the Seven were on their way to Thebes, his nurse left him alone to show them the road, on which he was killed by a dragon. Amphiaraus, seeing an omen boding death to himself and friends, called the child, whose name was Opheltes, Archemorus. The Nemean games (cf. the Epigram, Zfjvog A;ro'a ITaXai/Jovoc, 'Apxju6poio) were in his honour. The horse is called tristis from the melancholy origin of the games. 7 The chariot of this hero, together with himself, was swallowed up Bear the Ismenus. See on i. 15, 15. Write Elegiac poetry. PROPKRT1US. 73 than Antimachus or Homer : 1 a comely maid looks down even on the mighty gods. But the bull yields not to the heavy plough till he has his horns caught in the tough lasso, and you will not of your own accord submit to so harsh a bondage as love ; you are restive and will have to be first tamed by me. No woman now-a-days cares about inquiring into the system of the universe ; or why the moon is eclipsed by the steeds of her brother ; or whether any judge awaits them after the Stygian waves ; or whether lightnings flash and thun- ders roll from any design. Look at me, who had but little property left me by my father, and can boast of no triumph of my ancestors in ancient warfare, how I am the chief guest among a company of lasses through the same talent for which I am now disparaged by you. Be it my delight whom a god of unerring aim has pierced to the heart with a shaft, to lie at ease with yesterday's garlands on my brow. Let Virgil, 2 who is now reviving the arms of Trojan ^Eneas, and the building of a city in Latin districts, find pleasure in describing the shore of Actium, guarded by Phoebus, and the brave fleets of Caesar. Yield, ye Roman writers, ye Grecian poets, yield ; some- thing greater than the Iliad is arising. Thou, O Virgil, singest of Thyrsis beneath the pinewood of shady Galossus, and of Daphnis with their well-worn reeds, and how the send- ing of ten apples, and a kid 3 of a goat that was never milked, can bribe maidens. Happy man that buyest love cheap with apples ! Tityrus himself may sing to such a maid, though she thank him not. Happy Corydon who tries to enjoy the young Alexis, the darling of his rustic master ! Though he tire 4 of his oaten pipe, and desist from playing it, yet among the Hamadryads he gains praise with equal ease. Thou de- ' See Catull. xcv. 9. : He alludes to Virg. Mn. viii. 675 seq. In mtdio (of the shield of .5neas) classes ceratas ; Actia bella cernere erat. There was a temple of Apollo on the promontory, from which Apollo was called Actius. (See Ihuc. i. 29.) 1 Thyrsis, Daphnis, apples, and a kid, &c.] Allusions to Virgil's Ec- logues, more particularly v. vii. iii. 70, ii. 30, 2. The sense of v. 72 is, " Though his mistress may not thank him, yet, as a tune on the pipe doei not cost much, it will not trouble him much to play to her. 4 Though he tire, &c.] That is to say, Though he lays down tha bucolic reed, he gains equal reputation in singing of forest trees (Uw 74 PROPERTIUS. liverest the precepts of the sage of Ascra, and of the best land for corn-crops, and the best mountain-land for vines. Thou, Virgil, composest such a strain as Apollo's skilful fingers deftly play on the harp. These strains will not fall unplea- santly on the ear of any reader, be he skilled in or ignorant of Love. But the tuneful swan l is not made inferior by strains of this stamp, nor, if inferior, has he been silenced by the in- sipid note of Anser. Varro, 2 too, sported in this way, hav- ing finished his poem on Jason, Varro, a most ardent lover of his Leucadia. This theme has also been sung in the writings of the amorous Catullus, by which Lesbia has become more known even than Helen. The page of the learned 3 Calvus confessed this, when singing the death of the hapless Quintilia ; and how many wounds inflicted by the fair Lycoris 4 has Gallus, lately dead, washed in Lethe's stream ! Cynthia, too, will become known, from having been praised by the song of Propertius, if fame will place my name among these poets. Georgics). He pleases the Nymphs, and therefore knows how to win woman's favour. 1 But the tuneful swan, &c.] The meaning is, " If Virgil does write love-songs, he does not lower himself by it : nor, if they are worse than his Epics, will Anser prevent him from writing." Virgil (Ed. ix. 35) has " Neque adhuc Vario videor nee dicere China Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anscr olores," implying that his poetry, as compared with that of Varius and Cinna, was like the cackling of a goose, (anser,) con- trasted with the note of a swan, the bird of song. Propertius, accordingly, applying to these lines the name of a certain Anser, a Grub-steet bard of the day, and a detractor of Virgil, says that his abuse will not prevent him (v.) from writing. Anser is mentioned in Ovid, Trist. ii. 435. * Varro.'] Varro Atacinus, so called from being born B. c. 82, near the Atax, translated the Argonautica of A poll. Rhod. and wrote, besides, love Elegies, with the title of Leucadia, perhaps from the name of his mistress. Forjlamma we find in some editions cura, orfama. * See note on 17, 4. 4 Lycoris.] Her real name was Cytherts, she was famous as the mis- tress of Corn. Gallus, poet and statesman, who killed himself, B. c. '2b, on becoming suspected of high treason by Augustus. PROPEBTIUS. 76 BOOK IV. ELEGY I.' [iii. 1. K.] SHADE of Callimachus, and sacred rites of Coan Philetas, suft'er me, I pray you, to enter your grove. I am the first 8 priest who enter it to introduce among Greek strains Ita- lian poetry drawn from a pure source. Tell me, in what cave was it that ye both composed your fine-spun verses ? In what way did ye enter there ? Or what water did ye drink ? Farewell to him that employs his Muse on warlike themes ! Finely polished 3 be that verse through which fame is to raise me on high from earth, and a Muse originating with me is to triumph with steeds bedecked, the tiny Loves are to ride with me in my car, and a crowd of writers is to follow my wheels. Why do ye vainly strive against me with slack- ened reins ? A broad road by which to reach the Muses is not to be had. There will be many writers, Rome, to exalt thy glories, and to sing that Bactria 4 is doomed to be the limit of thy empire : but this production from the Sisters' mount, which thou mayest read in time of peace, our page has brought thee by a way hitherto untrodden. O Muses, give soft wreaths to your poet-votary ; a hard chaplet will not suit my brow. / am not unattached by envy, but any merit that an envious crowd may have denied me when alive, honour will restore to me, after my death, with double interest. After 1 Elegy I.] He again expresses his determination to write Elegiacs only, as best suited to his genius. This book consists of Elegies written A. u. c. 371-2. * I am the first, &c.] The meaning is that his Elegiac poetry is the first that is written professedly in imitation of that of the Greeks of the Alex- andrian school. 3 Finely polished.] Tenui pumice exactus, properly applied to the parch- ment on which the poetry was written, (Catull. i. 2 ; xxii. 8,) is borrowed to express the careful composition of the verses. The expressions in 9 12 are borrowed from a triumphal procession. 4 Bactria.] Bactria (Balkh), the chief town of the province of Bac- triana, is put for the province itself. The expedition against the Par- thians which took place A. u. c. 734, B. c. 20, was already in coutempU* tion. See infr. El. 4. 76 PROPERTIU8. a poet's death, antiquity enhances all he has done, a man'a name is greater and more talked of after he is in his tomb. For who could know of the battering of the citadel by the wooden horse ; or that a river fought with the Thracian hero; 1 that the Idaean Simois was the cradle of Jupiter in infancy ; that Hector, dragged round the plain, thrice stained the chariot wheels of his foe ; who could know of the prowess of Deiophobus, and Helenus. and men like Polydamas, but for the poet ? Scarcely his own country would know Paris, under his different characters. Ilion, thou wouldst now be but little spoken of, and thou, also, O Troy, twice captured by the powers of the god of (Eta. 2 Homer, too, the chronicler ol thy fall, has found his work gaining in repute as time sped on : so Rome will praise me amongst its remote descendants : I, of myself, foretell that life after my death. That a mere stone point not out the spot where my bones lie in their disre- garded tomb, is provided for by my vows which the Lycian god 3 approves. Let me, meanwhile, return to the usual sub- ject of my song, that my mistress be touched by and pleased with the accustomed sound. ELEGY II.< [iii. 2. K.] THEY say that Orpheus, with his Thracian lyre, arrested wild beasts, and stopped the course of rapid streams : they say that the stones of Cithoeron, brought to Thebes by musi- cal art, united, of their own accord, to form the city-wall. Moreover, Galatea halted her steeds, wet with Ocean-spray, beneath wild JEtna, at the sound of thy strains, Polyphemus. Are we to wonder that the race of maidens delight in my strains, since Bacchus and Apollo are propitious to me ? What though I have not a house supported by columns of Taenarian marble, nor ivory-like panels between the gilded 1 The Thracian hero."] Achilles. The allusion is to his fight with the Xanthus or Scamander. See Iliad xxi. 210 seq. * The god of (Eta. ~] Hercules: Troy was taken (1) by Hercules him- self in the time of Laomedon, (2) by help of his arrows, borne by Phi- loctetes, in Priam's time. 3 The Lycian god.] Apollo, " qui Lyciee tenet dumette, natalesque silvas." (Hor. Od. iii. 4, 62.) 4 Elegy 77. ] The poet professes Lis contentment with his present con- dition, saying that Poetry supplies the place of riches and magnificence. PROPERTIUS. 77 beaim of my rooms ; and though I have no orchards to rival the Phaeacian plantations, 1 nor water from the aqueduct of Martius 2 supplying artificial grottoes; yet I have the Muses as companions, and my verses are dear to the reader ; and Calliope wearies herself for me in choral efforts. A happy damsel thou, who art celebrated in my book ! My verses will be so many monuments of thy beauty. For neither the costly Pyramids that tower to the sky, nor the magnificent tomb of Mausolus, 3 are exempt from death at last. Their grandeur will be brought low either by fire or rain, or their solid mass will be overcome by time and fall: but a name gained by genius will never perish by time : the honours of genius are deathless. ELEGY III.* [Hi. 3. K.] METHOUGHT I was reclining in Helicon's soft shade, where flows the fountain opened by Bellerophon's steed, and that I was able to tell, on my harp-strings, of thy kings, Alba, and of their exploits, a mighty theme ; and I had put my humble lips to those grand fountains whence thirsty father Ennius drank before me, and sang of the brothers Curii, 5 and the jave- lins of the Horatii ; and trophies won from kings and brought home in the bark of ^Emilius ; 6 the successful delay of Fabius, the fatal fight of Cannae, and how the gods gave ear to holy 1 Phaacian plantations.'] See Horn. Odyss. vii. 112 seq. 2 Aqueduct of Martius.] Q. Martius Rex was Praetor 144 B, c., and commissioned by the senate to build an aqueduct, having his tenure of office prolonged another year that he might be able to complete it. See Pliny, xxxi. '24. The aqueduct commenced at a distance of 36 miles from Home, and the excellence of its water was proverbial. See Diet, of An- tiq. v. Aqueductus. - 1 Mausolus.~\ The tomb erected at Halicarnassus, by Artemisia his wife, to Mausolus, king of Caria, who died B. c. 353, was one of the seven wonders of the world. Compare with vs. 17 22, Shakespeare, Sonnet 55, " Not marble, not the gilded monuments," &c. * Elegy III.'] We have in this Elegy a description of a dream, in which Propertius is urged by Apollo and Calliope to attend to Elegiac poetry only. 4 The brothers Curii.'] See Livy, i. 24. ' Trophies won, &c.] Not the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedonia, by ^Emilius Paullus, which took place (167 B. c.) two years after Ennim died, but that of Demetrius, governor of Pharos in the Adriatic, by Jim I'aullus the consul, B. c. 219. 78 PROPERTIUS. prayers ; Hannibal scared by the Lares from Rome ; and the safety of Jupiter caused by a goose's cackle : when Phoebus, looking at me from Castalia's wood, spoke thus leaning against the grot, with his hand resting on his golden lyre : " What have you to do, madman, with such a stream ? Who bade you enter upon the work of heroic song ? Proper- tius, you must hope for no fame here : your little wheels must roll gently along the smooth meads to have your book taken up and laid down often, for a maid to read it while waiting for her lover. Why has your page gone beyond the beaten track ? You must not overload the bark of your genius. Let one of your oars skim the waters, the other graze the sand : keep your- self safe : in the open sea there are very many whirlpools." He spoke, and snowed me, with his ivory quill, a seat, where a new path was cut through the moss-covered soil. There was here a green cave, with artificial stone-work, and tympana hung from the hollow rock. Accordingly I found images in earthenware of the Muses, and father Silenus, and thy reed, O Tegaeean Pan : the winged doves, too, of my lady Venus, my favourites, I found dipping their purple bills in the Gorgon fountain : ' nine maidens, too, each having her own province, employ their delicate hands on their respective gifts. One gathers ivy for thyrsi, another sets verses to music, an- other weaves wreaths of roses with both hands. One of these goddesses, as I infer from her beauty, it was Calliope, said to me, " You shall always be content to be borne by snow-white swans, and the tramp of the war-horse shall not lead you forth to arms. Let it not be your concern to sound on the harsh horn the praises of naval daring, nor to surround the Aonian grove with Mars, or to tell of the camp in which the battle is going on under the standard of Marius, 2 and where Rome is crushing the Teutonic power ; or how the foreign Rhine, 3 reeking with blood of the slaughtered Suevi, bears wounded bodies on his sorrowing wave. Your care will be 1 The Gorgon fountain.] It was made by the hoof of Pegasus, the offspring of Medusa, one of the Gorgons. 1 Atarius."] See on ii. 1, 24. * The foreign Rhine.'] This alludes to the defeat, B. c. Ob, in Alsace, near the banks of the Rhine, of Ariovistus, the German chieftain. Se* Cee. Bell. Gall. i. 53, and Long's noie. PROPERTIUa. 79 to sing of lovers, with wreaths on, standing before an un- friendly threshold, and of the tokens of a drunken rout by night, so that he who wishes by his skill to deceive surly hus- bands may know how, by your help, to sing fair ladies out of their locked apartments." Thus said Calliope, and drawing water fr:m the spring, gave me a draught such as had inspired Philetas. ELEGY IV. 1 [iii. 4. K.] THE divine Caesar is preparing an expedition as far as the wealthy Indians, and to cleave with a fleet the waters of the gem-bearing sea. 2 Great, O crews, will the reward be : the end of the world is preparing triumphs : the Tigris and the Euphrates will submit to and flow under thy commands, O Ctesar. At last that region will become a province, subject to the Roman fasces : Parthian trophies will accustom them- selves to Latian Jove. Go, speed ye, give sail to the prow that has been tried in war, and take with you the accustomed gift of a horse 3 fit for bearing armed men. The omens that I announce are propitious : avenge the murder of the Crassi ; speed on your way, and provide for the historical glory of Rome. O father Mars, and fire of Vesta that contains the destiny of Rome, before my death, I pray, may that day be, on which I may see the car of Caesar laden with spoils, and the horses often stopped amid the cheering of the people : and, leaning on the bosom of my beloved girl, I may look on and read the names of the taken cities, and see the captive weapons of the flying horsemen, and the bows of trouser- wearing soldiery, and the conquered chieftains sitting beneath the armour. Venus, by thy presence preserve thy offspring : long life to that head which thou seest surviving as a descend- ant of JEneas. Let the booty be given to those whose toils have earned it. It will be enough for me to be able to applaud on the Sacred Way. 1 Elegy IV.} A prophetic Carmen Triumphale on the issue of the expedition against the Parthians. 1 The gem-bearing sea.} The Indian Ocean. ' A horse.} The Equites were each provided, at the public eipesae, with a hoise. 80 PROPERTIES. ELEGY V. 1 [iii. 5.] LOVE is the god of peace : we lovers worship peace : but I have, constantly, hard battles with my mistress. My breast, however, is not racked by desire of unseen gold, nor do 1 quench my thirst in a richly -jewelled cup ; nor is rich Cam- pania, with its thousand hills, ploughed for me : nor do I sor- didly hoard up brass, 2 obtained by thy destruction, O Corinth. O primeval earth, unlucky to the modeller Prometheus ! he executed his work with but little forethought : when putting together the parts of the body, he looked not after reason in his skilfully-devised work : sound sense should have been the first thing he attended to. Now we suffer ourselves to be carried by the wind into the open sea, and must look for ene- mies abroad, and add war to war. Thou wilt carry no riches to the waves of Acheron : thou must be carried naked, O fool, in the infernal bark. Conqueror and conquered will be to- gether in the shades below. Captive Jugurtha, 3 thou art side by side with Consul Marius. There is no difference between Lydian Croesus and Dulichian Irus : 4 Death is most excellent when it conveniently comes during poverty. I am delighted with having courted Helicon in youth, and joined in the dances of the Muses. I love, too, to fortify my senses with deep draughts of wine, and always to have my head wreathed with the blooming rose. And when time shall have stopped my career of love, and hoary old age shall have scattered 1 Elegy F.] In this poem, which alludes like the last to the intended expedition to the East, Propertius declares that war is not for him, ex- cept it be under the standard of Venus, and he announces his intention to devote his youth to love and wine, and his old age to scientific pursuits. 8 Brass.] At the destruction of Corinth (B. c. 146) by L. Mummius, an alloy was accidentally made, so says the legend, of various me- tals, more particularly gold and bronze : this cannot be true, as many artists, whose compositions in this metal are celebrated, lived long before that date. Some suppose it to have been nothing more than highly refined bronze. See Diet, of Antiq. s. v. JEs. 3 Captive Jugurtha.} Jugurtha, the grandson of Masinissa, was con- quered by Marius, B. c. 106, and starved to death in prison, B. c. 104: the war with him lasted five years, and was conducted, successively, by L. Cassius, Spurius, and Aulus Postumius Albinus, Q. Caecilius Metel- lus, and C. Marius. 4 Dulichian Irus."] Irus was the beggar of Ithaca, who " boxed with Ulysses for some kid's-fry," (Byron,) and was ignominiously punished by him before the suitors. See Odyta. xviii. FROPERT1US. fcl my black hair, then may it be my pleasure to search deeply into the machinery of nature ; to find what divine power it is that skilfully rules this terrestrial abode ; where the moon rises, where it wanes, whence it fills its horns, and comes to the full every month ; whence winds are frequent on the main ; what the East wind courts 1 with its blasts, and whence the clouds are perpetually supplied with water : whether a day is to come which shall uproot the foundations of the world ; why the purple bow drinks the rain-water ; or why the summit of Perrheebian Pindus trembled, and the sun's disc and its horses were in mourning: 2 why Bootes is slow in turning his oxen, and bringing round his wain ; why the group of the Pleiads gives a confused light ; why the deep main passes not its assigned boundaries ; or why the year is divided into four parts : whether beneath the earth gods rule, and giants are tortured : if Tisiphone's head rages with black serpent-wreath; whether Alcmoenn is tortured by Furies, 3 or Phineus 4 is starv- ing ; whether Cerberus guards the entrance to Hades with triple jaws ; whether nine acres are a scanty lying-room for Tityus : whether a fabulous belief prevail among the wretched nations, and there can be nothing to fear beyond the funeral pyre. 5 Let me live at the end of my life after this manner: do you who find more pleasure in arms, carry home the stand- ards lost by Crassus. ELEGY VI. [iii. 6. K.] A DIALOGUE BETWEEN LYGDAMUS AND PROPERTIUS. PROPERT1US. "TELL me truly, Lygdamus, what you know of my girl, that so you may be released from the yoke of your mistress. Do 1 The East wind courts.'] See Beaumont and Fletcher, Maid's Tra- gedy : " Rather believe the wind Courts but the pregnant sails, when the strong cordage cracks." 7 MourningJ] A solar eclipse is thus poetically described. 3 Alcmaon tortured.'] For murdering his mother Eriphyle. 4 Phineus.] The son of Agenor. He was, for cruelty to his sons, ex- posed to the Harpies, who stole half his food and soiled the rest, render ing it unfit to eat. * A fabulous belief.'] As the Epicurean philosophy asserts. Elegy VI.'] Cynthia and Propertius had had a quarrel: the poet Mks Lygdamus, her servant, how she had been behaving since, and call* apon him 10 act as a mediator. 82 PROPERTIUS. you think to elate me with a false joy, and deceive me, by telling me what you think I wish to belie re ? You will do so at your peril. Every messenger ought to be free from dis- guise, more especially ought a slave, who has the fear of pun- ishment before him, to tell the truth. If you remember any- thing, then, tell it me from the beginning : I will drink it in with eager ears. Have you seen her weep thus with hair in disorder ? Did showers of tears ever stream from her eyes ? Have you seen her neglect her looking-glass, Lygdamus, though her bed were luxuriously prepared ? Has she been without jewels decking her snow-white hands? Have you seen her dress hanging over her arms in sorrow ? Her dress- ing-case lying shut at the foot of her bed? Was the house sorrowful, and did the servants ply their tasks in melancholy mood, and did she spin in the midst of them ? Did she press the wool to her eyes to dry them, and did she tell in sorrow- ful accents of her quarrel with me ?" LYGDAMUS. " Lygdamus," she asked, " was this the reward that was promised me in your presence? He dares not, I suppose, break a promise made before a slave. He has the heart to leave me, wretched woman that I am, without any fault of mine, 1 and to say that he has a mistress that can be nowhere equalled. He is delighted at my pining, in solitude, on my empty couch: if he likes, Lygdamus, let him dance for joy at my death. She has not conquered me by graces, but by spells, the wretch ! he is drawn away to her by means of a wheel 2 whirled by many a thread. It is a philtre gathered from a bloated bramble-toad, and picked snakes' bones, that are enticing him, and owl-feathers found among ruined tombs : a wreath of wool, too, is, ere this, put round the image of the doomed man. If my dreams, Lygdamus, prelude not what is false, mark my words, he will fall at my feet, late indeed, but he will fall, and I shall be revenged. The spider 3 shall spin her flimsy web in their bed ; and may Venus herself remain asleep when they would wake her at night. 1 This verse is, probably, corrupt. ' See on ui, 20, 35. Ci'. Horn. Odyss. xvi. 34. PROPERTIES. 83 PROPERT1U8. But if my mistress was earnest in this her complaint, run back, Lygdamus, by the way that you came, and carry to her what I tell you with many tears, that her lover may have been angry but has not wronged her. Say, too, that I have been racked with torments like herself, and that for twelve days I have been pure. And if, after so great a quarrel, I be hap- pily restored to agreement with her, you shall be free, Lyg damus, through my instrumentality, ELEGY VII. 1 [iii. 7. K.] THOU, money, art then the cause of an anxious life to us : it is owing to thee that we tread the path to death before our time. Thou affordest cruel food to the faults of men : from thee spring the seeds of care. Thou sinkest Paetus thrice and four times in the mad sea, while spreading his sails towards Pharian harbours. For while in pursuit of thee he fell, luck- less one, in the prime of life, and is tossing on the waves, a new banquet for the fish of a foreign sea : and his mother cannot commit him with due rites to the kindly earth, nor bury him among the bodies of his kin : but now the sea-birds are perching on thy body ; now thou hast the whole Carpa- thian sea for a grave. O ill-omened Aquilo, terror of the ravished Orithyia, what great booty did his corpse yield thee? or what pleasure, Neptune, dost thou take in ship-wreck ? That vessel had on board god-fearing men. Why tell how few thy years, Paetus ? Why, when tossing on the water, is the name of thy dear mother on thy lips ? The billows have no gods. For all the ropes that moored thee to the cliffs in the stormy night were chafed and gave way. There are shores that testify to Agamemnon's anxiety, where the me- lancholy death of Argynnus 2 by drowning gives a bad repute to the waters. On the loss of this youth the son of Atreua 1 Elegy Vfl.] A beautiful poem on the death of a young friend named Paetus, who was drowned in a voyage to Egypt undertaken for some mercantile purpose. 2 Argynntu.] Paley reads, Qua notat Argynni pcena natantis aquas. Argyimus, according to Athen. xiii. 603, was a beautiful youth beloved by Agamemnon, who caused his death by pursuing him to the banks of the Cephisus. Properthis however, appears to have followed a different 2 84 PROPERTITJS. would not let the fleet start, for which delay Ij.Jiigenia was sacrificed. Restore, ye waves, his body to earth, and now that the water has taken his life, cover Paetus of thy own accord, O worthless sand. As often as the sailor passes his tomb, let him say, " Thou canst serve as a warning even to the bold." Go: build curved ships, the causes of death: a death of that sort is hurried on by human hands. The earth was too little: we have added the water to our instruments of death. By art have we increased the roads to misery provided for us by Fortune. Can an anchor hold you, whom your own home could not hold ? What, say you, does that man deserve who finds his native land too little ? All your preparations are at the mercy of the winds : not a single ship grows old .' even the harbour breaks its faith. With malicious design did Nature spread out the sea to the avaricious : scarcely one of your attempts can succeed. The rocks of Capha- reus 1 destroyed the triumphant fleet, when Greece was ship- wrecked and dashed on the mighty main. Ulysses, whose usual skill availed him not on the sea, wept the loss, by de- grees, of all his companions. But if Pcetus were now con- tentedly ploughing his ancestral fields with the oxen, and had thought that what I am now saying had any weight in it, he would be living, a welcome guest, under his own roof-tree, poor, but on land, where a man can have no cause for sorrow. On land Paetus was not obliged to hear the roaring of the storm, nor to hurt his delicate hands with the hard rope, but could lie, in his chamber of cedar 2 or Orician terebinth, with his head supported on a downy pillow of various colours. version of the legend, according to which Argynnus perished at sea, ana in the same spot where Ptetus was lost. 1 The rocks of Caphareus.] Caphareus (Capo D'Oro) was the S. E promontory of Eubaea, off which the Grecian fleet was wrecked on its re- turn from Troy. * Cedar.] Thyio. This word is an adjective from 9va or Bvia, which is generally supposed to have been a kind of cedar; but it is more probably a species of arbor vitae, the Thuja articulate of Linnaeus, a native of the mountains of the N. W. of Africa, and the timber of which exhales a fra- grant odour. The terebinth or turpentine-tree is of large size and stately growth, and is not uncommon in Palestine and many of the Greek islands It is not one of the coniferae, but bears a fruit like a small cherry. Sir Charles Fellowes (Travels in Asia Minor) compares it with our ash. Oui word turpentine is a corruption of terebinthine. Paley. PROPERTIUS. 85 While he struggled for life, the surge tore ofT his nails by the roots, and as he gasped wretchedly for breath, he swallowed the hateful water ; merciless night saw him clinging to a small plauk : so many causes united that Paetus might die. Weep- ing, he uttered these his last sad words, when the black water was closing his dying mouth : " Ye gods, in whose power are the .^Egean waves, ye winds, and every wave that is pressing down my head, whither are ye sweeping me, in the prime of youth ? The hands that I brought on to your waves were innocent. 1 Luckless that I am, I shall be dashed on to the sharp rocks of the Alcyons : the god of the azure main has grasped his trident 2 against me. May the waves, at all events, throw me on the Italian coast : this will be enough for me, if I do but come to my mother's hands." While saying this, the wave caught him in an eddy and drew him down : these were Pastus' last words, and such was his end. O ye hundred daughters of father Nereus, and thou, Thetis, who hast known a mother's grief, you should have placed your arms under his exhausted chin ; he would not have weig-hed down your hands. But thou, blustering Aquilo, shall never see my sails : I must be buried, after having lived a quiet life, at my mistress' door. ELEGY VIII.s [iii. 8. K.] I WAS delighted with our quarrel last evening, and all the revilings of your frantic tongue. Why, furious with wine, do you upset the table, and throw full flagons at me with raging hand ? But be bold enough, if you will, to pull my hair, and scratch my face with your pretty fingers ! Threaten to thrust a torch in my face and burn my eyes out, and tear my dress open, and bare my breast ! In so doing you give me proofs of genuine affection, for unless violently in love, no woman feels offended. A woman that bandies abuse with passionate 1 Innocent.'] This is most probably the meaning of longas. The an- cients thought that perjury was often punished by the loss or mutilation of a limb. Cf. Ov. Am. iii. 3, 2, Quam longos habuit nondum jurata ca- pillos. Tarn longos postquam minima laesit, habet. See also Horace's beautiful ode to Neaera: Ulla si juris tibi pejerati, &c. * Grouped his trident.] See Horn. Odyss. \. 291. 1 Elegy VIII.] He assures Cynthia that her violence in a recent quarrel fets not estranged him from her ; indeed, that he likes it rather than therwise. 86 PROPERTIU8. tongue, and throws herself at the feet of mighty Venus, of surrounds herself, when walking, with troops of attendants, or rushes down the middle of the road like a frantic Bacchante, or ia timid and often frightened by startling dreams, or is made miserable by a female portrait ; by such excitement, 1 can interpret her feelings truly ; I have learnt that those traits are often found in true love. An attachment that is not moved by insult, is not trusty. May my enemies meet with aa easy-tempered mistress ! Let my fellows that have not been bitten, see the wounds on my neck : let the black marks show that I have held my mistress in my arms. In love I like either to feel pain or to hear it expressed ; to see either my own tears or yours, Cynthia, when you speak silently with your knitted brows, or write with your finger what you cannot say. I hate to have my sleep interrupted by no sighs : I would always fain be in love with an angry girl. Paris was more violently enamoured when, amidst fighting with the Greeks, he could give delight to his mistress, the daughter of Tyndarus. While the Greeks are conquering, while foreign Hector continues to resist, he wages mighty wars in Helen's arms. I shall always be quarrelling, either with you, or with rivals for you : I like not any peace where you are concerned. Thank heaven that there is no other as handsome as yourself : you would suffer, if there were : now you may lawfully be proud. As to you who have been trying to seduce my mis- tress, may you have a father-in-law for ever, and a mother always in your house ! If you have had any opportunity of stealing a night from me, she has granted it to you from anger against me, not from good will to you. ELEGY IX.' [iii. 9. K.] MAECENAS, 2 knight descended from Etruscan kings, content to keep within the limits of your fortune, why would you send 1 Elegy JX.] In a strain of ingenious compliment to Maecenas, Pro- pertius alleges his patron's example as a justification of his own unwill- ingness to enter on the more ambitious flights of heroic poetry. In this he says he copies his patron's judicious reserve ; for the latter contented himself with his hereditary rank as Eques, though the highest honours of the state were within his reach. 1 Macenas."] C. Cilnius Maecenas, prime-minister and favourite of Augustus, patron of Virgil, Horace, Varius, Propertuis, Tucca, and other PROPERTIUS. 87 fiae into so vast a field of authorship ? Big sails suit not my bark. It is disgraceful to take upon one's head a burden be- yond what one can bear, and, finding oneself overpowered, to bend the knee and yield. Every thing is not equally suited to everybody, nor is fame gained if you are attached to any yoke-fellow. 1 Lysippus 2 excels in making life-like statues : Calamis 3 signalizes himself, you observe, by equestrian statu- ary. Apelles, 4 by his picture of Venus, takes the highest place ; Parrhasius 5 asserts his position by cabinet-paintings. Groups on a large scale are Mentor's 6 contributions toar*<: but the acanthus of Mys 7 creeps on its tiny way. The Ju- piter of Phidias 8 shows himself gracefully in the ivory statue : the marble wrought with skill peculiar to himself, claims Prax- itiles. 9 With some, victory always runs in company in the races at Elis : for others, glory was born for their swiftness of foot. One is made for peace : an other, adapted for a military life : each one follows the principles peculiar to his nature. celebrities, was descended from the Lucumones of Etruria. (Hor. Od. i. 1 ; Sat. i. 6, 1 seq.) 1 Nor is fame, &c.] Fama nee ex avTivi}, and the Jupiter at Olympia, in the A Uis or sacred grove. This statue is described in Pausanias (v. 12). Praxiteles.] Propria vindicat arte lapis. Praxiteles, B. c. 364 (?), was a sculptor of the later Attic school, as contrasted with that of Phi- dias : his great work was the statue of Venus, (called the Caidian Venus from its having been b ught by the people cf Cnidus,) noddled Sroro Phryne. 88 PROPKRTIUS. I have adopted your rule of life, Maecenas, and I am forced to surpass your example. Whereas you, honoured Roman, can wield the lordly axe, and lay down the law in the middle of the forum, or face the desperate Median foe, and ornament your house with stands of armour, and whereas Caesar is ready to supply you with means for action, and resources offer themselves to you so readily at all times ; you refrain, and modestly retreat into the shade : you reef with your own hand your swelling sails. This resolve, believe me, will be matched with those of the great Camilli ; you, also, will be in every man's mouth, and will tread closely in the footsteps of Caesar's renown. Loyalty will be Maecenas' true trophy. I cleave not the swelling sea with a large vessel : I lie safe under the shelter of a little stream. I shall not sing in mourn- ful strains of the citadel of Cadmus fallen amid the ashes of civil war, nor the constant engagements with equal slaughter on both sides : I will not tell of the Scaean gates, nor of Per- gamos, the citadel of Apollo, nor of the return of the Grecian fleet in the tenth spring, when the wooden horse, made by the art of Pallas, gave victory to the Greeks, and the plough was driven over the Neptunian walls. Enough will it be to havp been received with favour as an imitator of Callimachus, and to have sung in strains like thine, O bard of Cos. 1 Let these efforts of mine inspire boys and maidens with love : and let them hail me as a god and pay sacrifice to me. If you set me the example, I will sing of the wars of Jove, and Cosus, and Oromedon threatening heaven from the Phlegraean heights. I will take for my theme the lofty Palatine hill browsed on by Roman cattle, the walls cemented with the blood of Remus, and the royal twins that sucked the dugs of a wild beast : and my genius will take a higher flight at your command. I will tell of triumphs over eastern and western foes ; the swift discharge of the Parthian arrows in cunningly-pretended flight, the fort of Pelusium 2 undermined by Roman weapons, and the hand of Antony 3 fatally raised against himself. Do you take the reins ; be a kindly favourer to a young beginner ; 1 Bard of Cos.] Philetas. Paley reads Dore. * Pelusium.] A town that co.nmanded one of the principal mouths of the Nile; destroyed by Octavun B. c. 30. Antony.] He committed suicide B. c. 30. PROPERTIES. 89 and, when I have started, gently encourage me. You allow me thus much pra.se, Maecenas ; and it is owing to you that I shall have the credit of having pursued your own course. ELEGY X. [iii. 10. K.] I WAS wondering what the Muses had sent in the morning, as they stood by my couch at the first blush of day. They sent a token of my love's birthday, and thrice sounded notes of joy with their hands. May this day pass without a cloud, may the winds be hushed in the sky, and may the wave softly still its violence on the shore. On no sorrowers will I look to- day : let even Niobe's statue dry her tears. Let the Halcyons forget their sorrows and be silent, and let not his mother '* passionately lament the loss of Itys. Do thou, my darling, born with happy omens, arise, and pay to the gods that demand thy worship their due tribute of prayer. First shake off sleep by washing with pure water, and curl thy glossy hair with skilful hand. Next put on the dress with which thou didst first captivate the eyes of Propertius, and leave not thy head with- out a wreath of flowers. And look for the ornaments that set thee off, that thy beauty may endure, and thy reign with me last for ever. Then when thou hast crowned the altars and offered sacrifice of frankincense thereon, and a propitious flame shall have shone all over the house, prepare a banquet and let us spend the night in drinking, and let the marble vase regale the nostrils with essence of saffron. Let thf pipe grow hoarse and breathless with playing for us to dance to at night ; indulge thy wanton tongue at will ; let our festivities drive dull sleep away ; and let our merri- ment smite the public ear in the neighbouring street. Let the cast of the dice tell us whom the fatal boy is grievously tormenting. When we shall have spent the time in quaffing many a cup, and Venus begins her nightly ministry, let us retire to our chamber, and so finish the celebration of the anniversary of thy birth. 1 Elegy X.] A complimentary Elegy to Cynthia on her birthday. 2 His mother] Itys, the son of Procne, was killed by his own mothei, who afterward* became a swallow. 90 PROPEP.THT8. ELEGY XI. 1 [iii. 11. K.] WHY wonder that a woman sways my life, and deals with me as her thrall? 2 Why charge me with disgi'aceful want of spirit because I cannot break the yoke and burst my bonds ? A sailor predicts the coming of night better than a landsman : a soldier learns, by his wounds, to fear the conflict. That is what I used to boast of in my youthful days gone by : do you, now, learn to fear from my example. It was the Colchian maid that drove the fire-breathing bulls beneath the adaman- tine yoke, and sowed the seeds of fight in the ground that teemed with armed men, 3 and closed the fierce mouth of the watchful serpent, that the golden fleece might be carried to the house of JEson. The Maeotian Penthesi.ea, 4 in times gone by, boldly dared to fight with arrows, on horseback, against the Grecian crews: after her golden helmet was taken off and her face was seen, her beauty overcame her conqueror. Omphale, a Lydian maid that had been dipped in the Gygsean lake, was so fair that he who had built columns 5 as tokens of having subdued the world, spun at her command; too soft a task for a hand hard like his. Semiramis built Babylon, the city of the Persians, so that she raised a work strengthened by a brick wall, and two chariots might be driven, in oppo- site directions, on the walls, without 6 their sides and their axles touching. She also brought the Euphrates into the 1 Elegy XL] He excuses himself for being so devoted to Cynthia, by instancing great men who have been captivated by female beauty. Having mentioned Antony and Cleopatra, he takes occasion thence to conclude with a splendid panegyric on Augustus. 3 Her thrall.] Addictum virum : a phrase derived from the Roman law by which an insolvent debtor was formally made over to his creditor to be sold as a slave trans Tiberim. 3 The ground that teemed, &c.] Having killed the dragon that guarded the fleece, Jason sowed his teeth, and there came up armed men who fought with and slew each other. * Penthesika,~\ queen of the Amazons ; she came to the siege of Troy, and was there slain by Achilles. * Columns.] The pillars of Hercules, set up by him at Calpe and Abyla. * Without, &c.] For ne used to express a consequence instead of vt non. Compare Tac. Ann. xiv. 7, Hactenus adito dtscrimine ne auctor dubitaretur. Livy, i. 7, Institutum mansit ne exhis vescerentur. /&. 46, Forte inciderat ne duo violenta ingenia matrimonis jungerentur. PROPERTIES. 91 middle of the space where she had built her citadels, and bade Bactra rise to be the head of her empire. For why need I accuse heroes and gods ? Jupiter disgraces both himself and his family. Why need I mention that woman who brought disgrace on our arms, her that submitted to the embraces of her menials ? As the price to be paid by her degenerate husband, she demanded the walls of Rome, and the subjection of the senate to her commands. O guilty Alexandria, 1 land most skilled in treachery, and Memphis, so often blood-stained by our disasters, where the shore stripped Porapey 2 of his three triumphs ; no day will ever clear this disgrace from thee, O Rome : better hadst thou died on the Phlegraean plain, or even intrusted thy head to the mercy of thy father-in-law. The harlot -queen of debauched Canopus, that sole blot on our fame inflicted by the descendants of Philip, 3 aspired, forsooth, to set up the barking Anubis against our Jupiter ; to force the Tiber to endure the threats of the Nile ; to drive out the Roman war-trumpet with the jingling sistrum; 4 to follow Liburnian galleys with boats 5 driven by poles ; to spread dis- graceful musquito-curtains f> on the Tarpeian rock, and to lay down the law among the statues and arms of Marius ! Of 1 Guilty Alexandria.] Cf. the character given of the Egyptians in Theoc. xv. 45 seq. 2 Pompey.~] He was murdered on the shore, while escaping after the battle of Pharsalia. His three triumphs were (1) Sept. B. c. 81, on the conquest of Numidia : (2) Dec. B. c. 71, for his victories in Spain : (3) Sept. 30, B. c. 61, on the reduction of Syria. 3 The descendants of Philip.] Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, and through his ancestor Ptol. Soier, the son of Arsinoe, a con- cubine of Philip of Macedon, one of the sanguis Philippeus. 4 Sistrum.'] From atitiv, to shake, was a jingling brazen instrument, in shape like the frame of a .small battledore, with transverse brass rods passing loosely through holes in the sides. It was used in the rites of Isis. 5 Boats.] Baris (jSa'pij) is the Egyptian name for a boat. 6 Musquito-curtains.] It is curious with what wrath the Romans in the days of Augustus looked upon this innocent convenience, now so com- monly used in Italy. It was perhaps as a foreign innovation that it so excited their anger; yet they took very kindly to other foreign novelties of a far less excusable kind. See Hor. Epod. ix. 16, Interque signa turpe mili- taria Sol adspicit conopium. "Probably," says Paley, "the conopiurc which gave such offence was a peculiar sort of tent, and not a mere cur- tain ; still less, as some have thought, used as an Egyptian standard. It is hardly necessary to add that we derive our word canopy from it, which t recent writer on etymology has deduced from zannabu. ' hemp.' " 92 PROPERTIU3, what use now would be the breaking of the fasces of Tarqui- nius, whose cruel life stamps on him a name of like import, if a woman had to be endured ? Celebrate a triumph, O Rome, and, saved by Augustus, pray for his long life. But thou, Cleopatra, wast forced to fly to the wandering streams of the timid Nile : thy hands suffered Roman bonds : I saw thy arms marked by the bite of the holy asp, 1 and the sleep of death stealing secretly over thy limbs. " O Rome," said she, " I was not to be feared by thee, while thou hadst so illustri- ous a citizen, 2 nor was Antony, with his wine-sodden senses." What ! the city seated on seven hills, that rules over all the world, be frightened in war and quail at a woman's threats ! At our feet are the spoils of Hannibal, and records of the conquered Syphax, 3 and the crushed glory of Pyrrhus : 4 Curtius 5 gained a monument by filling up the chasm : Decius 6 ended the fight by charging the enemy on horseback : a path- way bears witness to the cutting down of the bridge behind Codes : 7 there was one to whom a crow gave a surname. 8 These walls the gods built : these walls they keep : as long as Ca3sar is safe Rome needs scarcely fear even Jupiter. Where are now the naval exploits of Scipio? 9 where the prowess of Camil- las ? 10 or thou, O Bosporus, 11 lately taken by Pompey ? Apollo will chronicle the defeat on the Leucadian coast : so much of military achievement has a single day taken from the victors. 12 But, sailor, whether making for or leaving harbour, remember Caesar all over the Ionian Sea. I I saw.] That is, he saw her in effigy in the triumphal procession. The asp is called sacer from being sacred to Isis. * Augustus.] Cf. Ovid, Trist. iv. 4, 13, Ipse pater patriae, quid enira civilius illo ? 3 Syphax.] King of Numidia, conquered, B. c. 203, by Scipio Africanua Major. Pyrrhu*.] King of Epirus, beaten, B. c. 274, at Beneventum, by Cu- rius Dentatus. See Livy, vii. 6. See Livy, viii. 9. * See Livy, ii. 10. A crow.] M. V. Corvns. Liv. vii. 26. The naval exploits of Scipio.] See Livy, xxviii. 45. Camillus.~\ Renowned for the siege of Veii. Livy, v. 21 seq. " Bospona.] Pompey, in 66 B. c., in prosecution of the third Mithri- datic war, took the kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, whither M. bad fled for refuge. II So much of military achievement, &c.] That is, one diy has eclipsed all their warlike deeds. PROPERTIUS. 93 ELEGY XII. 1 [iii. 12. K.] HAD you the heart, Postumus, to leave Galla in tears, and to march as a soldier with the brave troops of Augustus ? Was the glory of despoiling a Parthian of so much value to you as to make you disregard the repeated entreaties of your Galla ? If I may say so, may all you misers perish together, and every one that has preferred military service to a faithful bed-partner ! But you, madman, are content to cover your- self with a cloak, and drink, when weary, the water of Araxes from a helmet. She will, meanwhile, be pining away at every vague report, and fearing lest this valour of yours prove fatal to you ; and lest the Parthian archers exult over your slaughter, and the warrior, cased in iron mail, 2 over the gilded trappings of your horse ; and lest some melancholy relic of you be brought back to her in an urn. Thus they return who fall in that service. Thrice and four times blessed are you, Postumus, in the chaste Galla : with your disposition you deserved a different wife ! What will your loved one do, when prevented by no fear, and when Rome can teach her debauchery? But go in peace. Gifts will not influence Galla, and she will forget your cruelty. For on the day that the Fates send you back in safety the chaste Galla will hang upon your neck. Postumus will be a second Ulysses for his notable wife. The Ithacan's prolonged absence did him no harm, nor his warfare for ten years ; the fight with the Ci- cones ; the capture of Ismarus ; the burning, soon afterwards, of thy face, Polyphemus ; the guiles of Circe ; the lotus, se- ducing plant ; nor Scylla and Charybdis, agape with alternat- ing waters ; nor the lowing of Lampetie's 3 oxen when on the spit, his daughter Lampetie had fed them for Phoebus ; nor his flight from the embrace of the weeping Aeaean maid ; his being afloat so many wintry nights and days ; his having entered the gloomy and silent abodes of the shades ; his hav- 1 Elegy XII.'] Addressed to Postumus, who had joined the Arabian expedition under ^Elius Callus, and had left his wife, who would seem u be related to the Gallus of i. 5, and therefore a connexion of the poet's, to lament his long absence from home. 1 Cased in mail.] Cataphracti (Kara, thoroughly, ippayaw, to hedge,pro~ tect) was a name given to men clad in coats of mail. See Tac. H\t. L 79 ; Livy, xxxvii. 40. 1 See Odyts. xii. 374 seq. 94 PROPER! IU8 ing gone to the shore of the Sirens, after having stopped the ears of his crew ; nor his having bent again his old bow to the slaughter of the suitors, and thus set a period to his wander- ings. Nor was it for nothing he escaped all these dangers : his wife had continued chaste at home. Aelia Galla excels Penelope in fidelity. ELEGY XIII.' [iii. 13. K.] You ask me how it is that avaricious women charge high for their embraces, and how Wealth, wasted by Venus, com- plains of its losses. There is indeed a certain and evident reason for mischief so terrible: luxuries are introduced too easily. The Indian ant 2 sends gold from hollow mines ; the shell of Venus is brought from the Eastern sea ; Tyre, city of Cadmus, sends cloths of purple dye ; and the nomad Arabian sweetly-scented cinnamon. These arms force even modest women to surrender, and those who "ntdo thy disdain, O daughter of Icarus. 3 A matron walks, clad in whole fortunes of spendthrifts, and parades before our faces the costly price of her dishonour. There are no scruples in demanding, none in yielding ; or, if there are, hesitation is removed by gold. Eastern 4 husbands alone, whom the blushing Aurora dyes with her horses, have a happy funeral. For, as soon as the last torch has been applied to the funeral pile, an affectionate crowd stand around, with dishevelled hair, and strive as to who shall die, and follow her husband alive : they count it a disgrace not to be allowed to die. Those that win are burnt, and give their person to the flames, and lay their scorched faces on their husband's. Here we have a faithless race of wives : no woman here is as faithful as Evadne, 5 or as affec- tionate as Penelope. 1 Elegy XI If.] A tirade against the avarice of -women, suggested pro- bably by Cynthia's importunity. 2 The Indian ant.] This alludes to the story in Herodotus, iii. 102, of the gold-dust (//a/i/ioc xptwrte) being turned up by the ants, which in those parts are less than a dog but larger than a fox. See Humboldt's Cosmos. 3 Daughter of Icarus.] Penelope is called Kovpij 'leapioio, Trcpi^pwv riiji'tAoTrtta in Odyss. xi. 446. 4 Eastern husbands.] This custom is alluded to bv .(Elian, Var. Hilt, vii. 1H. See also Cic. Tusc. \ 27, 78; Val. Max. ii. 6, 14. See on i, 15, 21. PROPERTIU8. 95 Happy in days of yore were the peace-loving rustic youths, whose orchard and harvest were their wealth. The presents that they made were quinces l shaken from the boughs, and baskets full of scarlet bramble-berries ; and violets plucked with their own hand, shining lilies for the maids to carry in h'japs in their baskets, grapes wrapped in their own leave*, and a beauteous bird with plumage of various hues. ID those days maids gave secretly, in grots, to woodland men, kisses bought with such courtesies. A fawn's skin used to cover lovers completely, and the grass grew high, forming a natural couch ; the pine waved over them and formed a pliant shade ; it was no sin to see goddesses naked, and the horned ram, the leader of the flock, brought back, of his own accord, the sheep, after feeding, to the fold of the shepherd- god: and all the gods and goddesses, whose power is in the country, used to speak encouraging words at the sacrifices offered in their honour by you, rustics. "Thou shalt 2 hunt the hare, O stranger, whoever thou art ; and if thou lookest for a bird in my domain, call me, Pan, from the rock to join thee, whether thou seekest booty with rod or dog." But now the groves are deserted and sacrifices are abandoned : all follow gold, piety being now conquered. Honesty is driven out by gold : right can be bought by gold : law follows gold, and decency will soon follow it when law is gone. The scorched thresholds bear witness to the sacrilege of Brennus 3 while visiting the Pythian abode of the unshorn god. But Mount Parnassus, shaken from its laurel-bearing summit, sent a fatal shower of snow against the Gallic foes. To thee, O Polydorus, 4 the wicked Polymestor, king of Thrace, showed treacherous hospitality, having stolen thy gold. That thou, 1 Quinces are called Cydonia (poma) from Cydon or Cydonia (Khania) in Crete, where they were indigenous, and whence they were transported into other countries. The fruit was called KodvpaXov in the old Cretan dialect. See Pliny, xv. 10. 1 Thou shalt, &c.] Vs. 4346, are supposed to be words of encour- agement from Pan : they are from an Epigram by Leonidas of Tarentum. 3 See on iii. '23, 13. 4 Polydorus.] Son of Priam. He was sent to Polymestor, with a great treasure, to be educated by him : he killed the boy, and stole the gold, for which his eyes were afterwards put out by the Trojan women undei Hecuba. See yn. iii. 49 8eq. ; Eur. Hecuba, passim. 96 PROPERTIUS. too. O Eriphyla, mightest have gold bracelets on thy arms, /Amphiaraus disappeared with his horses. I will prophesy, and may I be mistaken in my forebodings to my country : Rome is cruelly crushing herself by her own prosperity. What I say is true, but no one believes me : for the Trojan prophetess in days of yore ' was doomed never to be believed when portending the ruin of Pergamus. She alone declared that Paris was bringing ruin on Phrygia ; she alone, that the horse was a trick and a snare. Her madness was wholesome for her country and her sire : her tongue, though set at X nought, was inspired truly by the gods. ELEGY XIV.* [iii. 14. K.] SPARTA, we admire the many laws of thy wrestling-school, but still more the many good fruits of thy maidens' exercise- ground, forasmuch as the maiden, though naked and wrestling with men, exercises her body in no disgraceful games : when the ball, 3 swiftly thrown from the hand, falls not as expected, and the crooked wire 4 of the hoop rattles as it rolls, and a woman stands covered with dust at the end of a foot-race, and sutfers bruises in the rough pancratium. Now joyfully she binds the coestus on her arms with thongs ; now she poises and whirls the weighty quoits ; she gallops round the course, girds her snow-white side with the sword, and covers her virgin head with the hollow brass helmet. She bathes, too, as a warlike troop of Amazons bathes, with bare breasts, in the waters of Thermodon ; at times she courses with dogs of native breed over the long ridges of Taygetus, her hair covered with hoar- frost. As when Pollux and Castor exercised on the sands of Eurotas, the one destined to excel in boxing, the other in 1 The Trojan prophetess, ,] Cassandra. * Elegy XIV.] A panegyric on the simple habits of the Spartan wo- men, as contrasted with the Roman. * When the ball.] Quum pila veloces fallit per brachia jactus, Paley : velocijactu, Kuinoel. K. interprets fallit as \av9dvtt, is not seen : Paley takes it of a ball falling unsuccessfully, comparing Odyss. vi. 116; viii. 374. 4 The crooked wire.~\ This may have resembled the iron rod, curved at the end, with which iron hoops are bowled now-a-days. Some suppose tj be a top, but top-spinning is not a violent exercise. PROPEUTIUS. 97 horsemanship : and Helen is said to have exercised alonj; with them with bare breasts, and not to have blushed at her divine brothers. 1 So i*. is at this day. The Spartan custom, in accord- ance with these habits, forbids lovers to retire : one may be with one's mistress in public. There is no need of anxious fear about a maid, nor of shutting her up and closely guarding her. No one has need to dread the severe vengeance of an angry husband. Without sending a messenger you may speak yourself on your own business : you are not repulsed after long waiting. In Sparta Tyrian robes deceive not the mistaken eye ; they never trouble themselves with perfuming their hair. But a maiden of our country walks surrounded with a great crowd of at- tendants ; nor is it possible to set a finger among them, the road being so thronged. Nor can you find out what look to assume, or how to address her : a lover walks in darkness. But if, O Rome, thou wouldst imitate the customs and exer- cises of the Laconians, thou wouldst be dearer to me from doing me that kindness. ELEGY XV.* [iii. 15. K.] So may I, henceforth, know no trouble in love, and never have to pass a sleepless night without you, as it is true that when my youthful modesty 3 was covered by the garb of man- hood, and I was allowed to tread in the path of love, Lycinna, influenced (ah me !) by no presents, gave my inexperience the first nightly lessons in the love in which she was herself an adept. It is now not much less than three years, during all which time I scarcely remember ten words passing between us. Your love has buried a!l traces of her, and no woman after you has ever placed sweet chains upon my neck. Dirce, 4 1 Helen was the child of Leda by Zeus, as well as Castor and Pollux. 2 Elegy XV.] The poel, while confessing an old liaison with Lycinna, a servant of Cynthia, assures the latter that he has long discontinued it, and warns her, by the fate of Dirce, not to be severe with the girl. 3 My youthful modesty, &c.] Ut mihi prcetexta pudor est velatus amictu, is the common reading, and that admitted into his text by Paley, though he inclines in a note to elatus in the sense of set aside, comparing vs. 9, Cuncta tuus sepelivit amor. 4 Dirce.} Antiope was married to, and afterwards repudiated by, her uncle Lycus, king of Thebes ; he made Dirce his second wife, who, from jealous motives, treated Antiope disgracefully, till at length she made her 98 PROPER1IUS. so cruel upon real grounds of jealousy towards Antiope, the daughter of Nycteus, the former wife of Lycus, shall be a warning to you. Ah ! how often did the queen set on fire her rival's fair hair, and fix her cruel nails in her delicate face : how often did she make her a handmaiden, and load her with unfair tasks, and bid her lay her head on the hard ground ! Often she suffered her to remain in darkness and filth ; often did she deny her, though fasting, the trifling boon of a cup of water. " Jupiter," she cried, " wilt thou never help Antiope in such distress ? the harsh chain galls my hands. If thou art a god, it is disgraceful to thee that thy damsel should be in bondage : whom but Jove is Antiope to call upon when a prisoner ? " By herself, however, slight though her strength was, she broke with both hands the bonds imposed by the queen. Then, with timid foot, she ran to Cithaeron's heights : it was night, and her wretched bed, the ground, was covered with hoar-frost. Often, startled by the roar of the swift flowing Asopus, she fancied that the footsteps of her mistress were following be- hind her. Then the mother, an outcast from her home, found stern Zethus and Amphion softened by her tears : and like as when the mighty billows hush their fury, when the east wind ceases to struggle with the south, and the shore is at length noiseless, and the lashing of the sand grows faint ; so did the young mother faint and bend her knee. But affection, though late, yet showed itself : her sons felt their error : O old man, 1 worthy guardian of the children of Jupiter, thou re- storest the mother to the children ; and they bound Dirce to the neck of a fierce bull to be dragged along. Antiope, ac- knowledge the power of Jove : Dirce is dragged for you to exult over, and to be made a mangled corpse. Zethus made the meadows bloody, and victorious Amphion played a paean on thy rock, O Aracynthus. 2 But do not you trouble Lycinna undeservedly : the torrent of your wrath never knows when to stop. Let no tale about me annoy your ears : you alone, even when burnt on the funeral-pile, may I continue to love. escape, and informed Amphion and Zethus, her sons by Zeus. There- upon they slew Dirce and Lycus. Cf. Odyss. xi. 260. 1 Old man.] The apostrophe is addressed to an old shepherd, whc hid educated the youths, and discovered their relationship to their mother. 2 Aracynthus,] was probably a mountain between Attica and Boeotia Cf. Virg. Eel. ii. 24, Amphkn Dircaus in Actieo Aracyntho. PROPERT1U8. 99 ELEGY XVI. 1 [iii. 16. K.] IT was midnight, and a letter came to me from my mistress from Tibur : she bade me come without delay, to where the hill-tops show the two towers, and where Anio's water falls into a wide basin. What am I to do ? am I to trust myself to the darkness that now shrouds the earth, and consequently fear a violent attack on my person ? But if I put oif this order through fear, the sad result will be more cruel to me than a nightly enemy. I once offended, and was cast off for a year : she has no gentle hand for me. But there is no one able to hurt lovers, for they are charmed ; one may walk, then, in the middle of Sciron's road. 2 Any lover may walk in the middle of the plains of Scythia : no one will be cruel enough to hurt him. The moon waits on his journey : the stars show him the rough ground : Love goes before with a torch and keeps it bright. Fierce and mad dogs turn aside their mouths though eager to bite : this class of men may walk in safety at all times. Why, what villain will stain himself with the in- significant blood of a lover ? Venus herself accompanies them on their solitary way. But if certain death were to follow any accident that might happen to me, at such a price I would even buy death. She will bring unguents for my funeral, and will sit as a guardian at my grave, and deck my remains with garlands. May the god grant that she lay not my bones in a crowded spot, where the common herd are constantly passing. Thus it is that lovers' tombs are dishonoured after death : may I be laid in a by-path shaded with trees, or may a heap of sand, in a retired place, fence in my body : I like not to have my name in the public road. 1 Elegy XVI.'] The poet, having received at midnight a letter from Cynthia bidding him come to her immediately, debates whether to go or not, consoles himself with the reflection that lovers bear a charmed life, and speculates on the consequences of his death. 2 Sciron's road.~\ The via Scirouis, (S/c ; s j i.i 108 PROPERTIUS. hands by such long use as had gained credence for them even when unsealed. They knew, by this time, how to appease my female acquaintances, and speak some eloquent words without me. No golden ornaments had made them dear to me : they were of common box-wood and cheap wax. Such as they were, they always remained faithful to me, and won good effects for me. Perhaps the following message was intrusted to those tablets : " I am angry at your having been slow in coming yesterday, you dawdler. Have you seen some one you think prettier than me ? Or are you maliciously com- posing abuse about me ? " Or else she said : " Come to-day, we will dine together : Love has prepared entertainment for you for all night :" and all the trifles that a clever girl readily thinks of, when she names a time for talking and saying soft nothings in secret. Wretched man that I am ! some miser is entering his accounts in them, and placing them amongst his heartless ledgers ! If any one brings them back to me, he shall be rewarded with gold. Who would keep bits of wood for wealth ? Go, boy, and quickly fix this notice on some column, and say that your master lives at the Esquiline hill. ELEGY XXIV.' [iii. 24. K.] WOMAN, false is that confidence of yours in your beauty, that was once made too arrogant by my partial eyes. It was my love, Cynthia, that gave you such praise : I am ashamed of your being celebrated by my verses. Often have I praised the various charms of your form, so that love feigned you to be what you are not. And your complexion has often been compared to the blushing morning, whereas the bloorr. on your face has been artificial. What my oldest friends could not turn me away from, nor a Thessalian witch wash out even with the mighty ocean, this I will confess, without being forced by torture or fire, and even if shipwrecked in the middle of the ./Egean main, to have been mere words. I was erst a victim and constantly being tortured in the cruel furnace of Venus : once I was bound with my hands behind my back. of messages by post. For the method of folding and tying these missive! the reader may consult Bekker's Gallus, p. 339. Elegy XXIV. ~] A taunting address to Cynthia, for whom he pro fosses to have had no real attachment. PROPERTIUS 109 Now the vessel is wreathed, 1 and come to port, I have passed the Syrtes, I have cast anchor. Now, at length, we are re- covering our senses, weary with our long voyage ; my wounds have now united and are whole again. O Reason, 2 since thou art a goddess, I dedicate myself as an offering to thy shrine : so many vows of mine had fallen unheeded on the deaf ear of Jove. ELEGY XXV. 3 [iii. 25. K ] I USED to be a laughing-stock when the tables were set for feasting, and any one who pleased might be facetious about me. I submitted to serve you faithfully for five years : you will often bite your nails and regret my lost allegiance. I am not a whit moved by your tears : I was taken in by that trick : you generally shed tears, Cynthia, with an artful mo- tive. I shall shed tears on leaving Rome, but my sense of wrong will conquer my tears : it is you who will not allow the yoke to be borne in concert. Farewell now to the thresh- old that has often wept at my words of woe, and to the door that after all was not broken by my angry hand. But may time press heavy on you, though you strive to conceal your years, and may unwelcome wrinkles come upon your beauty ! Then may you desire to pluck out grey hairs by the roots, your mirror, alas, officiously pressing your wrinkles on your notice : may you, in turn, excluded, be forced to suffer cruel disdain, and may you in your old age regret the deeds you have done. These are the curses that my page denounces on you. Learn to fear what will come at last to your beauty. 1 The vessel is wreathed.'] See Virg. Georg. i. 303, Ceu fessse quum jam portum tetigere carinae Puppibus et Iffiti naut posuere coronas. 2 Reason.'] There was a temple to Mens Bona, as we find from Ovid, Fast. vi. 241, Mens quoque numen habet. Menti delubra videmus, com- pared with Am. i. 2, 31, Mens Bona ducetur manibus post terga retortis. See Livy, xxii. 9, where we find that after the defeat, B. c. 216, of C. Flaminius at the Thrasymene Lake, the Sibylline Books were consulted, and, by their advice, ludi magni and temples were ordered for Venus Erycina and Mens. 3 Elegy XX V.~\ The subject of this Elegy is closely connected with that of the preceding, and is probably a reply to Cynthia's tears and ex- postulations on receiving it. BOOK V. 1 ELEGY I. [iv. 1. K.] STRANGER, all the present extent that you see of mighty Rome was, before the time of Phrygian ./Eneas, a grassy mound : and where the Palatine, hallowed by the temple of Naval Phoebus, 3 now stands, the cows of Evander strayed and fed. These temples, now golden, first sprang up in hon- our of earthenware gods, and a shrine built in no costly man- ner was no disgrace. The Tarpeian sire, too, used to thunder from a bare rock, and the Tiber met, 4 on its way, our oxen only. The spot to which yonder house of Remus 5 has raised 1 Book F.] The Elegies in this Book are of a miscellaneous character and of dates varying between A. u. c. 726 and 738. It is the opinion of Lachmann, in which Hertzberg concurs, that they were not published during the life of the poet, but collected and edited by his friends ; and he thinks they are generally in a more rude and imperfect state than the others. However this may be, it is certain that not a few of these post- humous poems are of surpassing beauty, and a very high order of poetical merit. There is a marked difference in style between this Book and the first, especially in the studied use in the first of long words at the end of pentameters. Paley. * EUgy /.] This difficult Elegy, as far as vs. 70, is supposed by Hertz- berg to have been designed as a procemium to a book of Roman Fasti, undertaken by the poet, probably in the year of the city 726, and just be- fore his love for Cynthia, in imitation of the Airia of Callimachus. To the same work probably belong El. 2, 4, 9, 10, all of which are among his earliest performances. The latter part of the present Elegy was evi- dently added after his attachment had commenced, and was meant as a kind of apology for not pursuing the historic style of composition further, but devoting himself to amatory versification. Hence the hospes address- ed in vs. 1, originally represented an imaginary stranger to whom the poet was pointing out the antiquities of the city ; the idea of making him speak in the character of a Babylonian seer seems to have subsequently suggested itself. Paley. * Vs. 3. By Navalis PJicebus is meant the Actius Apollo, called Navalis both from his having a temple, on the promontory of Actium, overlooking the sea, and from the naval victory there gained by Auguslus. 4 Vs. 8. A river is an advena to each town that it visits on its course : the meaning is that there was no one there to greet the waters of the Tiber but a few oxen. * Yonder house of Remus."] The rfcwwa Remi, more commonly called PROPERT1US. Ill itself by steps, was once the brethren's only hearth, and am- ple kingdom too. The lofty Curia that is now ornamented by a prsetexta- wearing Senate once held rustic sires, men clad in coats of skins. The trumpet used to summon the Quirites, in days of old, to debates : many a time did the original hun- dred form a Senate in a meadow. The bellying awnings were not hanging over the vaulted theatre : the stage did not smell, as ordinarily now, of saffron. No one busied himself with looking after foreign gods, when the crowd, all eager at- tention, were trembling at the native rite ; their care then was to celebrate the Palilia 1 with burnt hay, and to perform such sacrifices as are now renewed from time to time with blood from the stump of a horse's tail. Vesta was then poor, and content with a procession of crowned asses : 2 lean oxen used to drag the humble sacrifices to the temple. Fatted porkers used to purify the narrow streets, and the shepherd offered, to the music of a pipe, the entrails of a sheep. The ploughman, decked with pieces of goat-skin, dealt his leathern blows, from which custom the licentious Fabian Lupercus 3 derives his rites. The inexperienced soldier shone not then in hostile armour : they used to fight 'naked, and with stakes charred in the fire. Lycmon, with the goat-skin cap, was the first to build a general's tent : and the greater part of Tatius' decisions concerned pastoral matters. Hence came the warlike Titiens, and Ramnes, and the agricultural Luceres ; hence Romulus casa Romuli, was traditionally said to be the veritable abode of the founder of Rome, and as such was repaired and kept up even to the time of the empire. See iii. 7, 20; Ovid, Fast, i. 199. It stood on the Pala- tine Hill. Quo sustulit maybe simply understood " the spot to which the hut of Romulus raised itself by steps." This passage confirms Mr. Macaulay's conjecture (Pref. to Lays of Ancient Rotne) that it was re- moved from its original site near the Circus. Paley. 1 Vs. 18. The Pafilia, or Panlia, (pro partu pecorum,) were kept on the 21st of April, in honour of Pales, the divinity of shepherds. The ceremonies consisted in a purification by fire and smoke, the smoke being made from the coagulated blood of a horse's tail, (whence curtus oquus,) that had been dropped on the altar of Vesta in the preceding October, whence the horse was called October equus. 2 Vs. 21. On the festival of Vesta, (June 9,) a procession took p.ace in her honour, in which an ass, decked with stiings of loaves, held a p ro- minent place. See Ovid, Fast. vi. 313 seq. 3 Vs. 26. The priests of Cupefcus (Defender from Wolvet) were called Fabii and Quintilii, from their respective founders, Remus and Romulus. 112 PROPERTITTS. drove his four white horses in triumph : he then could do go: for, when the city was small, Bovilloe was not so close in the suburbs, and Gabii, that is now nothing, 1 had a very great population : powerful Alba, too, named after the omen of a white sow, was in existence, on the road 2 beyond Fidenae, which was then thought a long journey off. The Roman nurseling has nothing ancestral but the name : it is not ashamed at having a she-wolf as the nurturer of its line. O Troy, for better, indeed, hast thou sent hither thy fugitives ! with what a happy omen was the Dardan ship 3 wafted ! There was already a good omen in the very circumstance that the womb of tho wooden horse did not, on being opened, harm that ship when the sire clung trembling to his son's neck, and the fire feared to scorch his affectionate shoulders. Then came the manly Decius, and the stern Brutus, 4 and Venus, in per- son, brought the arms of Caesar her son. The land, adopting the conquering arms of newly-rising Troy, happily received thy gods, O lulus ! If the oracular-tripod of the feeble- voiced Sibyl of Avernus pointed out the spot to be purified for Aventine Remus, or if the slowly-fulfilled prophecies of the Trojan priestess, 5 addressed to aged Priam, were true : " Turn back the horse, O Greeks," said she: " your conquest will be fatal to you. The Ilian land will revive, and Jupiter will give power to these ashes." O she-wolf, sent by Mars, 6 best of nurses hast thou proved to our fortunes ! how great are the walls that have grown from thy milk ! It is the walls that I am trying to describe duly in affectionate strains : woe is me that my speech is but humble ! But, nevertheless, every rivulet of song that shall have flowed from my lowly breast 1 Vs. 34. Cf Hor. Ep. i. 11, 7, Gabiis desertior atque Fidenis vicus. * The road.] Alba was farther from Rome than Fidenae, a journey to which was thought long ; much more, therefore, would the road to Alba be long. 1 The Dardan ship."] The fleet of ^Eneas. 4 Brutus, as consul, (whence Bruti secures,) ordered the execution of his sons for conspiring for the restoration of Tarquinius. See Livy, ii. 3 seq. 4 The Trojan priestess.'] Cassandra. The conquest of Troy by the Groeks would be fatal to them, because from the ashes of Troy there would come a race, the Romans, by whom they were afterwards con- quered Sent by Mars.] Mars, as the father, by Ilia, of Romulus or Remus, ii said to have sent the wolf to fare his offspring. PROPERTIUS. 113 shall entirely serve my country. Let Ennius' surround his strains with a roughly made chaplet : Bacchus, give to me leaves from thy own ivy : that Umbria may be proud of and exalt herself in my writings, Umbria, the country of the Roman Callimachus. If any one sees the walls rising from the valleys, let him measure their greatness by my genius. Give ear, O Rome ; I am beginning a work in thy honour : citizens, give favourable omens, and let my enterprise be attended by kindly auspices. I will sing of sacrifices, and holidays, and ancient names of places : to these goals must my steed toil. truant Propertius, why are you imprudently rushing into a description of sacrifices ? Alas, your threads are not skil- fully arranged on the distaff. You sing against the will of the Graces : Apollo is unfavourable : you demand from your un- willing lyre strains it will have to repent of. I will bring for- ward certain proofs on certain authority ; or else I am a seer that knows not how to show the motion of the stars in a brass/ orrery. 2 The Babylonian Horos, scion of Archytas, gave me birth, and a family, descended from Conon, gives his to Horos. The gods are my witnesses that I have not disgraced my an- cestors, and that in my writings nothing is preferred to truth. Now the pretenders to my craft have turned the gods to profit even Jupiter is misrepresented for gold, and the hack- neyed signs of the obliquely turned sphere, and the lucky constellations of Jove, and that of greedy Mars, and the star of Saturn, fatal to everybody ; also what is being portended by Pisces, and the violent constellation of Leo, and by Capri- corn that bathes in the western waves. I could say, O Troy, thou shalt fall, and thou, O Trojan Rome, thou shalt rise again ; and I could tell of the long entombment to come of the sea and land. I said, when Arria was leading forward her two sons, she was sending them, against the will of the god, to battle, that they would not be able to bring back their arms to their own home : two tombs of a surety now attest my faith. Again Lupercus, while covering his horse's wound- ed face, did not, alas, look out for himself, when his horse fell forward : while Gallus, defending, in battle, the standard com- mitted to his charge, fell down before the blood-stained beak of his own eagle. Doomed were the boys two deaths were 1 " Let Ennius' poetry be rough and Karh." Or else, &c.] Cf. Ovid, Fasti, vi. 269 seq. Cic. De Dtv. ii. 34, 88. r~ 114 PROPERTIUS. there for the grasping mother : my predictions, .hen, were true, though I would fain have had it otherwise. I, too, when Lucina was protracting the labour pains of Cinara, and the burden of her womb was long in coming forth, said, Offer to Juno a prayer for deliverance. She is delivered : my books were in high credit. Such a prediction as this is not put forth by the sandy cavern-oracle of Jove in Libya, 1 nor by the entrails that declare the will of the gods as revealed to them, nor by any one skilled in the moving of a raven's wing, nor does a departed shade declare such from a vessel Jilled with magic waters. You must look to the path of the sky, and its track through the stars, and true oracles must be sought from the five zones. Calchas shall be a weighty proof of this : for it was he that loosed from Aulis the ships that were pro- perly fast to the rocks, the averters of mischief: 2 he stained a sword with the blood of the daughter of Agamemnon, and Atrides, when he started, had his sails defiled with blood. But the Greeks returned not. O plundered Troy, repress thy tears, and look to the bays of Euboea. Nauplius 3 held up, at night, avenging lights, and Greece, weighed down by her own spoils, is wrecked. O victorious son of Oi'leus, 4 ravish now and persist in loving the priestess whom Minerva forbids to be torn from her robe. So far history. Now I will take a flight to your stars : begin to listen patiently to new themes of sorrow. Ancient Urabria, well-known district, gave you birth, am I false, or have I hit upon your native place ? where cloudy Mevania 5 sends dews upon the hollow plain, and the waters of the Umbrian stream are warm in summer- time, and the wall, better known from your genius, rises on the crest of the towering Asis. 6 You gathered, too, the bones 1 Libya.~\ The oracle of Jupiter Ammon. * Vs. 110. The rocks are called pia. * Nauplius.'] Nauplius, father of Palamedes, who had been killed by Ulysses and Diomede, caused beacons to be placed on the most dangerous part of the Eubcean coast : the sailors, thus misguided, were consequently shipwrecked. See Eur. Orest. 433, and Schol. in loc. * O victorious *on.] Ajax, son of Oi'leus, ravished Cassandra in the tem- ple of Minerva, though she clung to the statue of the goddess. Vestis is the TrtTrXoc that was placed on the statue. * Mevania.~\ Mevania (Bevagna) was on the confines of Umbria : in vs. 124, Lacus Umber is the river Clitumnus. * Asis.~\ Asis is believed to be the name of a mountain, whence the (own of As-.sium was so called. PROPERTIUS. 115 of your father, that should not have been gathered at so early an age, and you are reduced yourself to a small estate. For whereas many oxen used to plough your acres, the melancholy measuring rod ' has swept away your carefully-kept lands. In time, when the golden amulet was taken from your young neck, and the toga of liberty put on before your mother's gods, 2 then Apollo taught you a little of his own poetry, and forbad you to thunder forth your eloquence in the jarring forum. But frame elegies, a tricksome work : make this your camp, and let the rest of the poet-crowd write after your model. You will suffer war in Venus' stern campaigns, and will be a gallant foe to the Loves. For one mistress will render vain your palms of victory, the produce of all your toil : and though you may extricate from your chin 3 the firmly-fixed hook, it will be of no use ; the handle will grasp you with its knob. At her will you will see light and darkness ; no tear will fall from your eyes, but at her bidding. A thousand night watches, and the marking of her threshold, will not help you : for a woman that has made up her mind to deceive, a keyhole is enough. Now though your ship be tossing in the middle of the sea, or you face, unarmed, an enemy in armour, or the earth shake and gape from its inmost hollows, fear not: be in dread of nothing but the ill-omened back of the eight- footed crab. 4 ELEGY II. 5 [iv. 2. K.] WHY wonder at my having so many shapes in one body ? Listen to the native characteristics of the god Vertumnus. A Tuscan am I, from the Tuscans I spring, nor am I ashamed of 1 The measuring rod.] By which the confiscated lands were assigned, B. c. 40, to the soldiers of Octavian. See Virg. Eclog. i. * Your mother's gods.] The Lares are so called, his father being dead. Cf. Persius, v. 31, Bullaque succinctis Laribus donata pependit. * Your chin, &c.] Criminals were dragged through the street by a stick with a hook at one end (of. Juv. x. 66) : at the other end there would probably be a crooked handle, to prevent its slipping. The meaning seems to be, " you will no sooner be out of one difficulty than you will be in another." * The eight-footed crab.] The meaning is, that " a woman born under Cancer will be your ruin : " Cancer is supposed to have been the symbol of grasping avarice, a prominent trait in Cynthia's character. * Elegy II.] The god Vertumnus gives an account of the origin ol his name, and of his various attributes. Cf. Ovid, Met. xiv. 641 seq., which passage Las been imitated by Swift. 12 116 PROPERTIES having deserted the hearths of Volsinium during war-time. This crowded neighbourhood pleases me : nor do I rejoice in a temple of ivory : it is enough to be able to see the Roman forum. The Tiber once flowed this way, and they say that the sound of oars was heard on the waters. But since he yielded so much to his nurselings, I am called the god Vertumnus from the diverting of the stream. Or, again, because we taste the first fruit of the declining year, a festival rs believed to have been instituted to Vertumnus. For me first does the cluster- ing grape grow black and change its colour, and the ears of corn swell with their milky produce. Here you see sweet cherries, and autumnal plums, and blood-red mulberries on a summer's day. The grafter here pays his vows by a chaplet of apple blossom when the unwilling pear-stock has borne apples. O lying report, you do me wrong. I have another reason for my name : as regards his own birth, believe a god only : my nature suits all shapes : change me into any one that you please ; I shall look well. Dress me in robes of Coan dye ; I shall become a yielding maid : who can say that I am not a man when I put on the toga ? Give me a sickle, and bind my brows with a hay -band ; you will swear that grass has been cut by my hand. Once I bore arms, and, I recollect, got praised therefor : with a heavy basket on my head, I was a reaper. I am not disposed for quarrels ; but put a wreath on me, and you will cry out that I have got wine in me. Bind my head with a turban, I shall steal the shape of Bacchus ; also of Phoebus, if you but give me the quill. Throw nets on my shoulder, and I am a huntsman : but when I take reeds I am a Faun deity, skilled in catching feathered game. Ver- tumnus also adopts the figure of a charioteer, and of one who nimbly passes his weight from horse to horse. Give me the means and I will catch fish with a reed : I can also go as a spruce pedlar with flowing tunics. I can, as a shepherd, bend me to a staff", or carry roses in baskets in the middle of the dust of the circus. Why need I add what I get most credit from, the garden-gifts that my hands approve ? The blooming cucumber, and the gourd with swelling belly, and the cabbage tied with the pliant rush, distinguish me : and not a flower in the meadow buds without first, as is due, being placed upon my brow to fade. Because, being but one, I change myself into every shape, my native tongue gave me PROPERTITJS. 117 a name from that circumstance : and thou, Rome, hast given honour to my fellow Tuscans, whence the Tuscan street has now its name. 1 At the time that the leader Lycomedius came with his band of allies and crushed the power of the fierce Sabine Tatius, I saw lines tottering, and weapons brought low, and foe-men disgracefully turning their backs in flight. But, O father of the gods, grant that, throughout eternity, the toga-wearing Roman people may pass before my feet. Six verses remain : you who are hastening on business I will not detain : this is the extreme end to my descant. I once was a log of maple, hastily hewn with an adze, and, before Numa's time, a roughly made god in a city that was dear to me. But, O Mamurius, 3 graver of my statue in brass, may the Oscan soil not lie heavily on thy clever hands, thou that hadst skill to cast me so easily and make me take what form thou wouldst. Thy work is but one, but honour is not given to the work under one aspect only. ELEGY III. 8 [iv. 3. K.] THIS message Arethusa sends to her Lycotas, if you can be mine, since you are so often away from me. But if any part be blotted and wanting when you come to read, the blotting will have been made by my tears : or if any letter deceive you by its indistinct form, each that does so will be a mark of my hand already stiffening in death. Bactra, among the repeatedly visited Orientals, has lately seen thee, and the Neuric 4 foe with horses clad in armour, and the wintry Get*, and the Britons with their painted cars, and the scorched In- dian, of different hue from us, dweller near the Eastern wave. Is this a husband's faith ? Was this the way your nights were pledged to me, when, in innocence, I yielded to your im- 1 The Tuscan street.} Allusion is made to the assistance lent to th ; Romans, against the Sabines, by the Tuscans, under Cseles Vibenna, who gave his name to Mons Caelius. See Tac. Ann. iv. 65. 2 Mamurius Veturius is said to have been the maker of the eleven an cilia after the model of that sent from heaven to Numa. 3 Elegy ///.] This purports to be an Epistle from Arethusa {JElia Gal/a ) to Lycotas, (Postumus. See iv. 12,) begging him to come home, and de- scribing her solitude. 4 Neuritnts, Paley : the Neuri were a tribe in Sarmatia : others read , Serieus. 118 PROPERTIES. portunity ? The ominous torch that was carried before me when I was brought home drew its dusky light from a half- extinct funeral pile : I was sprinkled with some Stygian water, and the fillet was not put straight on my hair : I wedded with- out a god to accompany me. Alas, my vows that are hanging on all the gates are injurious to me : this is the fourth military cloak that I am weaving to send to you to the war. Death to him who first cut a stake from the guiltless tree, and made of bone the hoarse and grating trumpet : more worthy is he than Ocnus l to twist the rope-coil, and to feed for ever thy hunger, O ass. Tell me, does the coat of mail gall your de- licate arms ? does the heavy spear chafe your hands unaccus- tomed to war ? I would rather this should hurt you, than that any girl should print with her teeth marks on your neck deplorable for me. You are said, too, to be thin in the face : but I hope that appearance is from regret for me. But, when evening has brought to me the bitter shades of night, I kiss all your armour that you have left. Then I grow nervous because the counterpane slips off the bed, and because the birds, who herald the light, do not sound their alarm. During the winter nights I toil at my task to send to you in camp. I cut the Tyrian wool properly for the shuttle ; I try to learn in what quarter flows the Araxes, the object of your expedition, and how many miles the Parthian steed can run without water : I try to learn from the map the countries, as set down, one after the other, and the nature of their settlement by the all-wise god ; what soil is adhesive from cold, what crumbling from heat, what wind is favourable for wafting ships to Italy. One sister alone sits by me, and my nurse, pale with anxiety, swears, though she knows it to be false, that your delay is owing to the stormy weather. Happy Hippolyte, with naked breast she bore arms, and, being a barbarian, covered her de- licate head with a helmet. Would that the camp was open to Roman maids : I would be a faithful attendant on your campaign : nor would Scythia's mountains keep me back, when the Father binds the waters into ice under a cold clear sky. 2 All love is powerful, surpassingly great is love for a 1 More worthy than Ocnus.'] This alludes to a picture in -which Ocnus was represented as making a rope which a donkey ate as fast as it was made : .a symbol of an extravagant wife wasting her husband's property as fast as he earned it. See Pausan. Photic, x. 29, 1. 1 A clear *%.] We read Aprico, the correction of Hertzberg, which if PROPERTIES. 119 lawful husband : Venus herself waves that torch to make it burn vividly. What care I that there is glowing purple of Phoenician dye in your house, and the sparkling crystal ornaments my hands ? Everything is mute and still, and only occasionally, on the kalends, one maid, accustomed to do it often, opens the closet of the Lares. I love to hear the melancholy bark of the lap-dog Glaucis : it alone, as it lies on the bed, claims a part of your prerogative. I deck the chapels with flowers, strew the cross-roads with vervain, and the dabine herb crackles at the old hearth. If an owl perches on a neighbouring beam and hoots, or if the waning lamp re- quires to be touched with wine, 1 that day portends death to yearling lambs, and the sacrificers tuck up their dress and busily prepare for fresh perquisites. Value not, I pray, so much, the glory of mounting the breach at Bactra, or wrest- ing from some scented general the standard of linen cloth, when the leaden missiles of the twisted sling are flying, and the crafty archers twang the bow as they ride away. But, the denizens of the Parthian land having been subdued, may a pointless spear, in your hands, follow the triumphant car. Keep faithful to me and your marriage-bed : on that condition only would I have you back. And when I take your arms and oifer them at the Capene gate, I will write underneath, " A grateful wife, on her husband's safe return." ELEGY IV.* [iv. 4. K.] I WILL speak of the Tarpeian grove, the disgraceful death of Tarpeia, and the capture of the ancient shrine of Jove. There was a grove enclosed within an ivy-clad ravine, with many a tree rustling in concert with the plash of native waters, the shady abode of Sylvanus, whither the sweet pipe approved, but not adopted, by Paley. Africus, the old reading, if retained, must be understood to mean as any wind. 1 " If the lamp sputtered, an arrival was expected, and the wine poured out in acknowledgment." Paley. Cf. Ovid, Heroid. xix. 151 seq. * Elegy /F.] The legend of Tarpeia is here told at length. See Livy, i. 11. Propertius so far departs from the common version of the story, that instead of attributing Tarpeia's conduct, to so sordid and unpoetical a motive as covetousness, he represents her as influenced by a passion for Tatius, the Sabine king. He thus renders her character less despicable ; but the conduct of Tatius becomes in proportion more odious. 120 PROPERTIUS. called the sheep out of the glare to drink. This fountain Tatius bordered 1 with a fence of maple, and placed his tru.sty camp on the crest of the elevation = What was Rome then, when the trumpeter of the Cures shook with its long-drawn blast the neighbouring rocks of Jupiter, and the Sabine arms were grounded in the Roman forum where law is now laid down for conquered lands? The mountains were a wall: 2 the war-horse drank from a fount where now is the enclosed Curia. From this spring Tarpeia drew water for the god- dess : an earthenware urn was balanced on her head. And was one death enough for the wicked girl that wished to de- ceive thy fire, O Vesta ? She saw Tatius exercising on the sandy plain, and brandishing his flashing arms about his hel- met's yellow plumes. She was struck dumb at the king's beauty and his royal arms, and her urn fell from her careless hands. Often she made a pretext of ominous appearances in the guiltless Moon, and said she must dip her hair in the stream. Often she took silver-white lilies to propitiate the Nymphs that the spear of Romulus might not hurt the face of Tatius : and while ascending the Capitol, built among the clouds, in the early smoke of evening, and returning thence, she scratched her arms with the rough brambles : and when she got back from the Tarpeian citadel she wept over her ..ove-pangs destined not be tolerated by her neighbour Jove : " camp-fires, said she, and tent of the body-guard of Ta- tius, and Sabine arms, beauteous to my eyes, oh that I were sitting a captive in your innermost recesses, could I but look in captivity on the arms of Tatius. Ye Roman hills, and thou, O Rome, built on the hills, and Vesta, about to be put to the blush by my disgrace, farewell. That horse, that horse shall restore my love to the camp, whose mane Tatius combs, with his own hands, to the right side. What wonder is it that Scylla was merciless to her father's hair, and that the lower part of her fair form was changed into fierce dogs? 3 1 Bordered.'] Prtecingit. It is manifest that Tatius did not completely enclose the fountain, since it was still in the possession of the besieged, but that he merely approached it with his camp lines. Perhaps, as Paley inclines to think, huncfontem means rather the pond at the bottom of the hill than the spring-head. * The mountains were a wall.] The Tarpeian rock, steep as a wall, was a natural fortress. * Changed into Jierce dogs.~\ Propertius here confounds Scylla, the PROPERTIUS. 121 what wonder that the horns of her monster brother were betrayed by Ariadne, when the mazy way was laid open by following a clue ? How great a guilt am I going to lay upon Ausonian maids, I a faithless attendant on the virgin hearth to which I have been chosen ! If any one is surprised at the fire of Pallas l being extinct, let him pardon me : the altar is drenched with my tears. To-morrow, so says report, fighting will be going on all over the city : do you follow the wet edge of the thorny ravine. The whole way is slippery and treach- erous, for it conceals, throughout, the waters that trickle noiselessly in their unseen channel. Oh that I knew the strains of magic verse ! this tongue, too, would then have helped you, beautiful Sabine. It is you the embroidered robe becomes, not one whom, born to his mother's disgrace, the hard dug of a fierce she- wolf nursed. Whether I am to be a concubine to you, or bear you children as a queen in your palace, I bring you no mean dower in the betrayal of Rome. If this please you not, carry me off, that the Sabine women be not carried off unavenged, and pay back in turn what you owe them. I can separate the armies that are in battle-array : ye married women, form an alliance through my marriage. Hymen, add thy lays : trumpeter, stop thy fierce blare ; trust to me, my embrace shall soften your fatigue in arms. And now the fourth trumpet is heralding the coming of light, and the very stars are sinking into ocean. I will court sleep : I will desire dreams about you. Come to my eyes a kindly shade." She spoke and dropped her arms in sleep, ignorant, alas, that she had gone to slumber with fresh furies in her heart. For Vesta, trusty guardian of fire brought from Troy, fosters her guilt, and puts more fires into her bones. She rushes forth like as a Thracian Bacchante, with rent robe and bosom bare, speeds along by the swift Thermodon. There was a holiday in the city: the fathers had ordered the Palilia: it was the birthday of the city-walls. It was the shepherds' daughter of Nisus, (iv. 19, 21,) with Scylla the sea-monster. The same mistake has been made by Ovid, Fast, iy . 500 ; A. A. i. 331. With vs. 40, cf. Catull. ix. 2, Sylla latrans infima inguinum parti. 1 The fire of Pallas?] The celestial image of Minerva, the Palladium, was kept in the temple of Vesta, and its custody was an equally import- ant duty of the Vestals as the maintenance of the perpetual fire. Se Dvid, Trist. iii. 1, 29, Hie locus est Vestse, qui Pallada servat et ignem. 122 PROPERTIUS. yearly feast, a merry time in the city, when the village dishes reek with delicacies, and the drunken rabble leap with their dirty feet over loose heaps of blazing hay. Romulus ordered the pickets to rest, the trumpet to cease sounding, and all things to be silent in the camp. Tarpeia, thinking this was her time, goes to meet the foe : she makes her compact, and is ready to accompany her confederates. The hill was difficult in as- cent, and, as it was a holiday, but negligently guarded : with- out delay Tatius despatches with his sword the dogs that would have given the alarm. All things combined to lull the garrison to sleep : but Jupiter alone determined to keep awake for thy punishment, Tarpeia. She had betrayed her trust at the gate, and her sleeping home, and she asked leave to name a wedding-day at her choice. But Tatius, for, though a foe, he paid no honour to villany, said, " Marry at once and ascend the marriage-bed of my kingdom." He spoke, and overwhelmed her by throwing his followers' arms on her. This, O maid, was fit payment for thy services. The moun- tain has got its name from the commander Tarpeius : O guard, 1 thou hast the reward for thy undeserved fate. ELEGY V.* [iv. 5. K.] MAY the earth, O procuress, cover your tomb with thorns ; may your shade feel thirst, 3 which you so dislike ; may your manes not rest with your ashes, and may avenging Cerberus frighten your vile bones by his hungry bark. She had skill to make even obstinate Hippolytus become a votary of Venus, and was always a bird of most fatal omen to a happy bed ; she would have forced even Penelope to despise the report of her husband being alive, and marry the wanton An- tinous. Should she wish it, the magnet would not be able to attract iron, and the bird would be as cruel as a stepmother to her own nestlings. Moreover, should she bring to the magic trench herbs from the Colline gate, 4 solid places would 1 O guard. ] O vigil : addressed to the father whose injusta sors (death by the Sabine captors) is opposed to the deserved fate of the daughter. * Elegy F.] A malediction on the memory of an old bawd, Acanthis, who had wished to set Cynthia against him. Cf. Ovid, Am. i. 8, 1 seq. 4 The Uolline gate,] near the Porta Collina, wa the Camput Sceleratvt PROPERTIUS. 123 be drenched with running water. She was bold enough to attempt to enchant the moon, and impose conditions on it, and to change her own form and prowl by night as a wolf : in order to be able to deceive anxious husbands by her cun- ning, she gouged out with her nail the guiltless eyes of ravens : she also consulted owls on my destruction, and against me gathered the hippomanes, 1 droppings of a mare with foal. She used to gloss over the work of infamy by words, accord- ingly as the seductive crime readily kindled the heart, or by assiduous efforts surmounted the stony path of virtue : " If, Doryxenium," she would say, "you have a mind for the treasures of the Orient shore, and the shell that proudly glows beneath the Tyrian water, and Euripulus' texture of Coan silk, and tattered fragments of tapestry cut from couches of Attalus, or the productions sent by palm-bearing Thebes, and myrrhine vases baked in Parthian fires, despise honour, trample on the gods, let lies be your ruling principle, and break the laws of ruin- ous modesty. To pretend that you have a husband pays well. Avail yourself of all plausible excuses : the longer the night is put off the more ardent will be your lover's passion. If he chance to ruffle your hair, his anger is a good thing for you : by and by, when he has had to buy his peace, you will be able to keep a tight hand over him. Then, when he has pur- chased your favours and you have promised him an embrace, take care to pretend, time after time, that it is the feast of Saturn, 2 and that you must keep pure. Let your maid lole urge that it is April, let Amycle din into his ears that it is your birthday on the Ides of May. He is sitting at your feet, we icill suppose: do you take a chair, and write something or other. Make him believe that you are writing a billet-doux to another lover of yours : if he is dismayed by this trick, you have him fast. Have always fresh marks of bites about your neck, and let him think you got them in a struggle with another. Do not choose to be ill-treated like fond Medea ; she was disdain- ed because she had ventured to make the first proposals ; be where Vestal Virgins who had broken their vows were buried alive : as such it was a good botanical field for witches. Paley. ' Hippomanes.] See this described in Virgil, Georg. iii. 281 seq. ; sEn. iv. 515. 2 That it is the feast of Saturn.] Puros sideris esse dies. Literally, that it is the pure day of the planet. The sidus may, without much straining, De Saturnus. Some read Isidis, with which compare iii. 32. 124 PROPERTIUS. rather the greedy Thais of the clever Menander, when, as a harlot in the play, she takes the fancy of the cunning Getse. 1 Humour your man ; if he court your favour by his singing, strike up, and join your tipsy voice with his. Let your porter be awake for such as come with presents : for such as come empty-handed, let him be deaf and fast asleep against the bar that closes the door. I would not have you dislike a soldier, though not made for love, nor a sailor with horny palm, if he bring money, nor even one of those who have had labels hung round their foreign necks, when they danced in the middle of the forum with chalked feet. 2 Look to the gold, not to the sort of hand that brings it. After listening to poetry, what have you got but words ? 3 A man that gives verses without a Coan dress, let his lyre have no effect on you without money. While your blood is young, and age has brought you no wrinkles, make the best of your time, lest to-morrow snatch something from your mouth. I have seen the rose gardens of scented Passtum, that seemed likely to live, fall scorched beneath a morning's south wind." While Acanthis was tampering in this way with my mis- tress's heart, you might have counted my bones through my skin, I was so thin. But, Venus, for thy good offices, re- ceive at thy altars the offering of a ring-dove. I have seen a cough gathering in her wrinkled neck, and blood-stained sputa come from between her gapped teeth ; I have seen her breath- ing out her rotten soul in her beggar-father's wrappers. The confined garret was chilly, and there was no fire on the hearth. Her obsequies were a stolen chaplet to tie up the remains of her hair, and a filthy old faded turban, and a dog that, to my sorrow, was too wakeful, when I wanted to undo the bolts noiselessly with my thumb. Let the bawd's tomb have over it an old urn with broken neck, and let thy weight, O wild fig, lie heavy upon it. All ye lovers, pelt the tomb with pieces of stone, and, as ye throw, curse her. 1 Geta.~\ This was a common Gentile name for a slave, as we speak of niggers. 2 Chalked feet.} Foreign slaves imported for sale used to stand in the forum with i'eet chalked, (cf. Tibullus, ii. 2, 59,) with a paper about their necks specifying their age, abilities, country, &c. There follow here by way of quotation, in some edd., the first two lines from i. 2. These, though, judice Hertzbergio, they are nervi totivi elegies, we venture to omit. PROPERTIUS. 125 ELEGY VI. 1 [iv. 6. K.] THE priest is offering sacrifice: 2 keep a religious silence during the ceremony, and let a heifer fall stricken before my altars. Let the Roman tablet vie with the ivy-berries of Phi- letas, and let the urn of Gyrene 3 contribute its streams. Give me the soft unguent, and the grateful and honourable frank- incense, and thrice let the woollen chaplet be wound about the altar. Sprinkle me with water, and let the ivory pipe pour forth music from Phrygian stores at the altars of fresh turf. Begone far away, deceits ! Let guile be in another clime : the pure laurel-leaf is carpeting a new path to the priest. My Muse, let us tell of the temple of Palatine Apollo : the subject is worthy of thy favour, Calliope. It is Caesar's name that demands my song ; Jupiter, thyself attend I pray while I sing of Caesar. There is a port of Phoebus receding into the Atha- manian shores, 4 where a bay encloses the murmuring Ionian waters, a bay memorable for the naval victory of the descend- ant of lulus, at Actium, and that is now of easy passage for sailors. Here met the forces of the world : the pine -built mass rested on the waves, and favourable omens did not equally attend both. One fleet was condemned by the Trojan Quirinus, as were the javelins disgracefully thrown by a woman's hand. On the other side was the ship of Augustus, with sails bellying by the good-will of Jupiter, and the stand- ards of his country, by this time skilled in conquering. At length Nereus had divided the fleets into two crescents : the water, as it rippled, shone with the brightness of the armour : when Phoebus, leaving Delos 5 that stands through dread of 1 Ekgy VI.'] A eulogy on Augustus for the victory at Actium, in com- memoration of which he had remodelled certain ancient games, and ap- pointed them to be celebrated every five years. It was probably on the occasion of their being held for the fourth time, B. c. 15, that this piece was written. 2 The priest is offering sacrifice.'] The poet represents himself as a priest about to perform a sacrifice, and hence in Uie succeeding verses he borrows metaphors strictly derived from sacrificial usages. 3 The urn of Cyrene.~\ Alluding to Callimachus of Cyrene. * The Athamanian shores.] Athamania was a district in the S. E. of Epirus. The Ambracian Gulf is meant. Delos was formerly not fixed, (hence Ovid, Met. ri. 332, erratic* 126 PROPEKTITJ8. him, for it alone was once movable and at the mercy of the angry south winds, came and hovered over the poop of Au- gustus, and shone there, a strange flame, thrice curving like a torch when held aslant. He came not with hair waving on his neck, nor with the unwarlike strain of his ivory lyre, but with countenance like as when he looked at Agamemnon l the descendant of Pelops, and piled the Dorian camp with greedy funeral fires : or like as when he crushed the coiled folds of the serpent Python, whereat the peaceful Muses trembled. Soon he said : "Augustus, preserver of the world, descended from long Alba, known as more powerful than thy Trojan ancestors, conquer by sea : the land is long ago thine : with thee my bow fights, and all this burden on my shoulders favours thee. Release from fear thy country, which now, relying on thy championship, has set public prayers on thy prow. If thou save not her, Romulus, when looking for a site for his walls by augury, saw not the birds on the Palatine fly past with lucky omen. See, they are too venturous with their oars : oh it is disgraceful for the Latins, with thee at their head, to allow the queen's fleet to be upon the waves ! Be not afraid at the fleet having vessels with a hundred oars : the sea bears it unwillingly. As to the prows carrying figures that threaten to hurl stones like the Centaurs, you will find them but hollow boards and painted scare-crows. With soldiers the cause they fight for raises or depresses their strength : if it is not just, shame makes them drop their arms. The time is at hand; begin the fight: I, who have given the time, will lead the Julian ship with a crown of laurel in my hand." He spoke, and exhausted the contents of his quiver in shooting : next to his bow was the spear of Caesar. Rome conquers as Phoebus promised ; the woman pays the penalty ; the vanquished queen flies over the Ionian waves. But father Caesar looks on in admiration from the Idalian star : " I am a god," he says, " and this is a guarantee that he is of my blood." Triton advances winding his horn, and all the sea goddesses applauded round the now free standards. She Delos,) till Phoebus secured it: he is called vindex from his threat of reducing to complete instability again if it was not steady. 1 Agamemnon.'] The allusion is to the plague, described by Homer, (Iliad i. 40 50,) as having been sent by Apollo against the Greeks. PROPERTIES. 127 made for the Nile, weakly relying on a swift bark, and for- tunate in this alone, that she was not destined to die on the day appointed by the conqueror. The gods ordered it for the best : but what a triumph would one woman have made, in the streets through which Jugurtha was led before ! Actian Apollo hence obtained his monument, because one arrow shot from his bow conquered ten ships. Of wars I have sung enough : victorious Apollo now calls for the lyre, and puts off his arms for the peaceful dance. Let the guests, clad in white, now enter the sacred grove ; let soft wreaths of roses flow over my neck ; let wine drawn from Falernian presses flow, and let the Cilician saffron- essence thrice lave my hair. Let the Muse stimulate the genius of her poet-votaries as they drink. O Bacchus, thou art wont to be suggestive to thy Phoebus. Let one poet re- late that the marshy Sicambri are enslaved ; another sing of Cephean Meroe and its swarthy kingdom. Let another recount that the Parthian has at length acknowledged the yoke of Rome : let him restore the standards of Remus, he will soon have to surrender his own. Or if Augustus spares anything in his eastern victories, may he but leave those conquests for his boys. 1 Crassus, if sensible at all, rejoice among the black sands: we may go over the Euphrates to thy tomb. Thus will I pass the night in drinking and song, till day sheds its beams over my wine. ELEGY VII." [iv. 1. K.] THERE are, then, such things as spirits : death does not finish everything, and the lurid shade overcomes and escapes the funeral pile. For Cynthia, who was lately buried where the murmur from the remote causeway falls faintly on the ear, appeared to me to be hovering over my bed, when my sleep was made unsound by thoughts of my love's obsequies, and I bewailed the chilly solitude of my bed. She had the same hair as when carried out to burial, and the same eyes : 1 His boys.'] Caius and" Julius, the sons of his daughter Julia, were adopted by Augustus. * Elegy VII.~\ The ghost of Cynthia appears to Propertius as he u asleep and dreaming of her, and upbraids him with his neglect of her in her last moments, and his indifference to her memory. i28 PROPERTIUS. her dress was scorched and clung to her side : the fire had devoured the beryl that she generally wore on. her finger, and the water of Lethe had washed her lips. She breathed, as in life, and spoke, but the frail fingers ] of her hands rattled. " Traitor," she said, " and one whom no girl can ever hope to find better, can sleep already have any power over you ? Had you already forgotten, when you fell asleep, our stolen interviews in the wakeful Subura, and my window worn by nightly cunning attempts ? How often have I let myself down -to you through it by a rope, sliding hand under hand, into your arms ! Often have I lain in your embrace in the thoroughfare, and warmed the pavement with my cloak. Alas for our secret bond of affection, the little regarded words of which were carried away by the south winds that would not hear. No one cried out 2 to me when my eyes were sinking : I should have obtained one more day, had you recalled me. No watcher 3 sounded on my account on a split reed, and my head was cut by a broken tile on which it was propped. Lastly, who saw you bowed down with grief at my funeral ? Who saw your black dress warm with tears ? If you were ashamed of going beyond the door, you might have ordered my bier to have been carried more slowly to the pyre. Why did you not, ungrateful one, pray yourself for a breeze to blow on my funeral pile ? Why was not the fire that consumed me scented with spikenard ? It was even too much trouble for you to throw cheap hyacinths 4 over me, and to place a broken vase as a hallowed offering over my tomb. Let Lyg- damus be tortured, let the iron glow for the slave ; I felt the effect, when I drank the deadly wine that had been drug- ged for me. But let cunning Nomas lay aside her secret 1 But the frail fingers.} At implies that the words were those of the living, the hands those of the departed, Cynthia. * Cried out.'] Inclamavit. See Paley. * No watcher.] The custos watched by the body till carried to the grave, occasionally sounding a shrill note on a pipe, in case it should be only in a trance 4 Cheap hyacinths.] " The hyacinth here meant is probably our own familiar and beautiful blue-bell, agraphis nutans, which is a native of every country in Europe. The eastern (or gardea) hyacinth, though wild in the Levant, could hardly have been vilia in Italy ; and the Martagon iily or Turk's cap, which is the u. ypairra vaKivQo^ of Theocritus, the flower ' inscribed with woe,' is still less likely to be meant." Paley. PROPERTIES. 129 spitting on her hands : the hot tPe will then show that they are guilty. 1 A creature that was lately seen a common nightly street- walker, now trails a gold-bedizened petticoat over the ground : and with unfair baskets 2 exacts the penalty of heavier tasks from any tongue that says a we rd about my beauty: and be- cause Petale carried some wreaths to my grave, the old woman feels the weight of the degrading clog. Lalage, too, is beaten, and hung up by the hair, 3 for daring to make a request in my name. With your consent she melted down the gold of my portrait, and dared to win a dower from my burning funeral- pile. I do not blame you, Propertius, though you deserve it : long was my reign in your writings. I swear to you by the song of the Fates, which no one can unsing, 4 and so may the three-headed dog bark gently at me, that I retained my at- tachment to you. If I am deceiving you, may a viper hiss in my grave, and crouch over my bones. For there is a twofold abode assigned beyond the melancholy stream, and all the crowd are ferried one way or the other. One road carries off the adulterous Clytaemnestra, another branch of it the Cre- tan woman who horribly imitated a cow in wood. See an- other company ride in a bark wreathed with flowers, to where the blessed air freshens Elysian roses, where the jovial rebeck sounds, and the round cymbals of Cybelle, and the Lydian lute sounds to the mitred choirs : Andromeda, 5 too, and Hypermnestra, 6 guileless wives, tell their tale, personages noted for their history ; the form, complains that her arms are black from the chains put thereon by her mother, and says that her hands did not deserve the cold rocks ; Hypermnestra relates 1 Spitting on her hand, &c.] As a kind of magic protection against harm. It would seem that Nomas had undergone the ordeal before, but had escaped in consequence of having recourse to this unfair expedient. * Unfair baskets.] Compare Uncle Tom's Cabin, chap, xxxiii., / do the weighing. 3 Hung up by the hair.~] See Juv. vi. 490 seq., Martial ii. 66, for the cruelty with which mistresses treated their maids. 4 No one can unsing.~\ Nulli revolubile : literally, " which no one can untwist," like the thread they spin whilst they sing. * Andromeda.] See i. 3, 4. 6 Hypermnestra.] One of the daughters of Danaus. She spared her husband Lynceus on their wedding-night, when her 49 sisters murdered their respective partners, the sons of ^Egyptus the brother of Danaua, being forced to do so by their father, who was afraid that his nephews were conspiring against him. See Horace, Od. III. xi. 21 48. K . 130 PROPERTITJS. that her sisters dared a desperate deed, but that her heart was not hard enough for such wickedness. Thus by tears shed after death, we heal the love- wounds of life : I say nothing of your many misdeeds and perfidies. But I now give you a commission, if perchance your feelings are moved, if the spells of Doris do not hold you completely. Let not my nurse Par- thenie want anything in her trembling old age ; she was easy with you and never grasping : and let not my pet Latris, who has her name from her business, hold the mirror to your new mistress : and all the verses that you have ever made on my account burn, I beg : cease to have credit on my account. Keep from my grave the ivy, which is twisting round my soft bones with its struggling clusters and matted stems. Where fertilizing Anio keeps guard over the orchards, and where, by the favour of Hercules, 1 ivory never grows clingy, there write an epitaph worthy of me on the middle of a pillar, but short, so that the traveller may read it as he runs from the city. " Here in Tiburtine soil lies the golden Cynthia: 2 thy bank, O Anio, has gained renown." And do not despise dreams that come from the kindly gates 3 of sleep: when kindly dreams come, they have weight. By night we roam abroad : night lets loose the incarcerated shades : even Cer- berus quits the door and strays. Our laws compel us to re- turn by day-break to the Lethaean pools : we are ferried over : the ferryman counts his freight each time. Now other women may own you : in time I shall have you to myself; you will be with me, and I will mingle my bones with yours." After she had finished making her mournful complaint to me, her shade eluded my embrace. 1 Hercules.] He was worshipped at Tibur, the air of which, from the mephitical exhalations of the water, was supposed to preserve the colour of ivory ; in vs. 82, pallet is " grows dull." Cf. Martial iv. 62 ; viii. 28, 11 ; vii. 13. 2 Golden Cynthia.] Aurea is " excellent." Cf. Tibull. i. 6, 57. Tua mater me movet, atque iras aurea vincit anus. Shaksp., Cymb., " Golden lads and lasses must, Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust." 1 Kindly gates."] The gates of sleep were twofold: 1. ivory; 2. horn from the latter true dreams were said to come. See JEn. vi. 894. PROPERT1US. 131 ELEGY VIII. 1 [iv. 8 - K -l LEARN what it was that made the watery Esquili* turn out last night, when the crowd of neighbours came hurrying from the new park. 2 Lanuvium is, of old, protected by an aged dragon ; here, where the occasion of an amusement so seldom occurring is not lost ; where is the abrupt descent into a dark and hallowed cave ; where is let down, maiden, beware of every such journey, the honorary tribute to the fasting snake, when he demands his yearly food, and hisses and twists deep down in the earth. Maidens, let down for such a rite, grow pale, when their hand is unprotectedly trusted in the snake's mouth. He snatches at the delicacies if offered by a maid, the very baskets tremble in the virgin's hands. If they are chaste, they return and fall on the necks of their parents, and the farmers cry " We shall have a fruitful year ! " Hither rode my Cynthia, with her ponies neat and trim: Juno 3 was the cause, but Venus still more so. O Appian Road, tell me, I pray, how triumphantly she rode as you saw her wheels flying over your rough pavement, when a disgraceful brawl was heard in a vile pot-house : if without me, at all events not without a stain on my good name. As she sat, with all eyes upon her, she leaned over the pole, and daringly drove at full speed over the rough road. I say nothing of the silk-lined vehicle of the closely-shaved dandy, and his Molossian dogs with ornaments on their necks : he will one day be forced to sell himself to coarse diet, when the beard of which he is now ashamed will get the mastery over his close- shaved cheeks. As my rights were so often invaded, I de- termined to shift my camp and change my bed. There lives a certain Phyllis near Diana's temple on Mount Aventine : when sober, she is rather dull ; when she drinks everything 1 Elegy VIII.'] A very lively account of the manner in which the jilted poet retaliated on Cynthia, and how she caught him in the fact and took summary vengeance upon him and her rivals. 2 The new park.~\ Vs. 2. Agris novis. Maecenas had converted a ceme- tery on the Esquiliae into a park. The poet (cf. iv. 23, 24) lived in that neighbourhood, and the people came to ask him what the matter was. Cf. Hor. Sat. i. 8, 14. 3 Lanuvium.] This place was celebrated for the worship of Juno So- pita: Milo, the murderer of Clodius, was dictator there, K 2 132 PROPER nrs. % in her is agreeable. There is another, Teia, who lives near the Tarpeian groves, a pretty woman, but, when she is tipsy, one man is not enough for her. I determined to invite these and enjoy myself in the evening, and with a new mistress to steal new delights of love. A sofa was set for us three in the quiet shrubbery : do you ask how we sat ? I was between the two. Lygdamus was our cupbearer ; our goblets were of glass, as it was summer, and our wine Greek, from Methym- nae. 1 Thou, O Nile, didst supply us with a flute-player. Phyllis played the castanets, she was neat and simply dressed, and good-natured to be pelted with roses. A dwarf, too, with limbs shrunk and short, shook the hollow castanets of box in his deformed hands. But the flame would not burn steadily, though the lamps were constantly trimmed, and the table fell flat off its frame : and when I kept trying to get the Venus with the lucky dice, the cursed aces always came out. I was deaf to their singing, blind to their naked charms : I was, alas, solely at the gate of Lanuvium ; when suddenly the door-posts shook, and the hinges creaked, and a slight noise was heard at the entrance of the house : in a moment Cynthia throws back both the folding doors, with her hair not elaborately decked, but beautiful in her rage. The cup fell from my paralysed hands, my lips blanched, though moistened with wine. She flashed lightning from her eyes, and raged as only a woman can : the sight was as terrible as the taking of a city. She angrily dashed her nails into Phyllis' face : Teia, panic-struck, cried out to the neighbours to bring water. 2 Lights were brought out, which roused the sleeping Romans, and every path rings with the nightly brawl. The first wine-shop on the dark road sheltered my visitors, with hair torn off their heads, and garments rent. Cynthia stands exulting amid the spoils, and, having routed her foes, comes back to me, and, with ruthless hand, scratches my face, bites my neck and makes it bloody, and above all strikes at my guilty eyes. When she has tired her arms with beating me, Lygdamus, hidden near the hind legs of the sofa, is pulled out, and, on his knees, implores my genius : Lygdamus, I could do nothing, I was a prisoner as 1 Methymtwe.] In Lesbos. * To bring water.] A ludicrous image of the panic produced by Cyn- thia's irruption. One of the girls screamed " Water ! water! " aa if the house was on fire. PROPERTHJS. 133 well as yourself. At length, with clasped hands, I proposed an agreement, when at last she allowed me to touch her feet, and said, " If you wish me to forgive the guilt that you have committed, listen to the conditions I impose. You will neither walk, in full dress, in Pompey's portico, nor when sand strews the noisy forum. 1 Beware of looking up, with your neck bent obliquely, to the top of the theatre, 2 or of loitering witt your litter open. And in the very first place let Lygdamus, 3 the origin of all my complaint, be sold, and trail fetters on both his feet ! " Thus she laid down the law. I answered, " I accept the conditions." She laughed, proud of the imperi- ous rule she had imposed. Then she fumigated every spot that the strange girls had touched, and washed the threshold with pure water. She ordered me too to change all my clothes, and thrice touched my head with sulphur-smoke. Then we changed the bed-clothes sheet by sheet ; I agreed to do what she wanted, and, now that the bed was harmless, we made up our quarrel. ELEGY IX. [iy. 9. K.] AT the time that the son of Amphitryon had driven herds from thy stalls, Erythea, 5 he came to the Palatine moun- tain ridge abounding in cattle, and, weary himself, halted his weary cattle, where the Velabra were overspread by their own marshy stream, and the boat-man sailed over waters that have given place to what is now part of the city. But they re- mained not safe in the faithless hospitality of Cacus ; by stealing them he profaned the god of hospitality. Cacus lived hard by, a robber, in a fearful cave, who discharged flames separately through three mouths. He, to prevent the traces of his barefaced plunder from being clearly seen, drew the oxen backwards, by their tails, into the cave, but not with- out a god seeing it : the heifers gave token of the theft by lowing, and Hercules in anger burst open the stronghold of Sand strews, &c.] The gladiators exhibited in the forum, the scene of many a dispute at other times. 1 The top of the theatre,] where the women sat apart. * Lygdamus, &c.] He had invited her rivals. 4 Elegy /A".] This Elegy contains an account of the building, by Her CIlU'S, of the Ara Maxima, and the occasion thereof. Cf. Livy, i. 7. * Erithyia.] Geryon kept his herds at Erithea, near Gades. J84 PROPERTIUS. the monster. Cacus fell, stricken by a blow on his three heads from the Arcadian club. Alcides then said, " Go, my oxen, go, oxen of Hercules, last toilsome trophy of my club, oxen twice, sought for, twice won by me, and mark this ground as ox-fields by your long-continued lowing : your pasture-ground shall be the noble forum of Rome. 1 " Thus he spoke, while his mouth and parched palate were racked with thirst, and no teeming earth supplied him with water. Suddenly he hears some girls laughing, in retirement, at a distance, where a grove had grown into a forest with shady circuit, containing the secret shrine of the feminine goddess, 2 and the springs used in sacri- fices, and the rites profaned with impunity by none. Purple fil- lets covered the retired abodes ; the timeworn shrine glowed with burning incense ; the poplar, too, ornamented the temple with its masses of foliage, and many a shady bower sheltered the birds as they sang. Hither he rushed, and sweeping the ground with his beard, dry and matted with dust, he poured forth, before the door, words beneath the language of a god : " To you I pray, O ye that are sporting in a sacred grotto in the grove, open your shrine, in hospitality, to weary travellers. I am wandering in want of water, and that, too, about a country of murmuring streams, and as much water as I can hold in the hollow of my hand is enough. Have ye heard of one who has borne the world on his back ? I arn he : the rescued earth calls me Alcides. Who has not heard of the bold deeds of the club of Hercules, and of his arrows powerless against no beast that is born, and of the Stygian darkness opened to him only of men ? Receive me : at last this land is open before me, weary one that I am. Though ye were offering a sacrifice to Juno my bitter enemy, even she, step- mother though she is, would not have shut up her water from me. But if any one of you is frightened by my looks, or my lion's skin, and my hair scorched in Libya's sun, I am the same one that performed servile offices in a purple robe, and spun my daily task with the Lydian distaff: my hairy breast has been confined in a soft girdle, and, though my hands are hard, I made a handy girl." Thus spoke Alcides : and the venerable priestess answered him as follows, having her grey hair bound with a purple fillet : 1 The forum.] The part of Rome afterwards called the/orum bcarium. 1 The feminine goddess.] The Bona Dea. PROPERTIUS. 135 Gaze no longer, stranger, and withdraw from the hallowed grove : quickly begone, and fly from our threshold whilst thou canst leave it in safety ! The altar that protects itself in a retired shrine is forbidden to men, and profanation of it is punished by a fearful penalty. At a great price 1 did the priest Tiresias gaze on Pallas, while she laved her stalwart limbs, having laid aside the Gorgon-shield. May the gods send thee other fountains : the spring that flows here, out of the way, and with secret approach, is peculiar to maidens ! " Thus said the old woman : he pushed with his shoulder the door that hid the fountain from his view, and the closed door was not proof against his assault, angry and thirsty as he was. But after he had fairly drained the stream and quenched his thirst, he laid down severe laws before drying his lips. " This corner of the world," said he, "receives me, in the course of fulfilling my destiny : at length this land is open to me, weary as I am. May this great altar, dedicated by me on the recovery of my flocks, made great by my own hands, never be open to the worship of women, that the thirst of the great Hercules be not unrevenged ! " Hail, O holy father, to whom savage Juno is at length kind, consent, propitiously, to be in my poem. This man, since by his hands he had cleansed the world, the Sabine Cures set up in a temple as Holy. . ELEGY X. [iv. 10. K.] I WILL now begin to sing the origin of the name of Jupiter Feretrius, and the taking of the three suits of armour from the three chieftains. I_am beginning a steep ascent, but glory gives me strength ; a crown gathered from an easy ascent pleases me not7 Thou, O Romulus, suppliest the first instance of this victory, by returning, laden with the foeman's spoils, what time with thy victorious spear thou felledst Acron 3 of Co3- nina, when approaching the gates, and laid low both man and horse. Acron, descended from Hercules, chief from Comma's citadel, was once a terror to thy boundaries, O Rome. He dared to look for spoils from the shoulders of Quirinus, and 1 At a great price."] That of blindness. * Elegy X.] The derivation of the obscure title Jupiter FeretriiUj is here discussed. * Acron.] See Livy, i. 10. . . 136 PROPEKTIDS. gave up his own, still wet with his blood. Romulus saw him poising his dart before the hollow towers, and, having previ- ously registered a vow, closed with him : Jupiter, to-day shall this victim, Acron, be offered to thee. He had vowed : and Acron fell, a spoil for Jupiter. This was the way the father f the Roman city and valour was used to conquer, he who bore the cold camp, with the sky for his roof. He was a horseman and skilled in riding ; a husbandman skilled in ploughing ; his wolf-skin helmet was crested with a shaggy horse's tail, and his shield was not ornamented or glittering with plates of bronze. After him comes Cossus, 1 who killed the Veientine Tolumnius, when the conquest of Veii was toil- some. Not yet was the sound of war heard beyond the Tiber : the limit of their booty was Nomentum, and the tripartite land taken with Cora. 2 ancient Veii, you, too, were then i city, and the golden chair of state was placed in your forum. Now within your walls the pipe of the idle shepherd sounds, and among your remains fields are mown. By chance the Veientine chief took up his position over the gate-tower, and confidently challenged the foe from his own city. So while the battering-ram was knocking at the wall with its iron head, where the long penthouse afforded shelter for the work, Cossus says, " It were better for a brave man to meet his foe on level ground." Without delay, each is ready on the plain. The gods helped the arm of the Latin : the severed neck of To- lumnius splashed the Roman horses with blood. Next Claudius Marcellus repulsed the enemy who had passed into the country from the Rhine, when the shield of the mighty Belgic hero Virdumarus was brought back. This man boasted his de- scent from the god of Rhine himself ; right skilled was he in hurling the javelin, standing upright in the car. To Claudius there fell, after cutting off his head, a crooked chain from the hero clad in striped breeches, while hurling the javelin in the front rank. Now there are three sets of spoils stored up in the temple : the origin of the name Feretrius is from each leader striking 3 down his opponent by a sure blow. Or else 1 Cossus.'] See Livy, iv. 20. * Cora.] Cora ( Cori) was about 37 miles from Rome, and is mentioned in yEn. vi. 776. Nomentum (La Mentana) was among the Sabines, and aftf.rwards famed for its wine. Striking.] Viomferire, to strike. PROPERTIUS. 137 because they carried 1 on their shoulders this armour won from their conquered foe, the proud altar of Jupiter Feretrius has its name. ELEGY XI ' [iv. 11. K.] FORBEAR, Paullus, to dwell continually, with tears, on my death : the black gate opens to no prayers. When once dead bodies have entered the infernal domain, egress is barred by inflexible adamant. Though the god of the gloomy hall may hear you, it will be in vain, for the shore that cannot hear will drink in your tears. Prayers move the gods above : but when the ferryman has received his toll, the gloomy gate is shut fast upon those who have been committed to the grassy sod. Such was the note of the mournful trumpet, when the un- friendly torch, applied to the foot of the pile, was withdraw- ing my head from the bier. What availed my marriage with Paullus, the triumphs of my ancestors, or the tokens of my nobility, great though they were ? Did I, a Cornelia though I was, find the Fates less severe ? Lo, I 'am a weight that may be lifted with five fingers. darkness of the damned, and ye sluggish pools of water, and every wave that entangles my feet, though before my time, yet came I not here guilty. May the Father, accordingly, lay mild conditions on my shade. Or, if there be an ^Eacus that sits as judge with an urn before him, may he, if I am found guilty, give the ballot against me, and punish my remains. May his fellows sit by him, and may the stern crew of Eumenides be near the seat of Minos in the listening court. May Sisyphus leave his stone ; may Ixion's wheel be still ; may the deceitful water 1 Carried.] From ferre, to bear. * Elegy XI.] This Elegy may fairly be regarded as a masterpiece of the poet's genius. It is a splendid composition, full of pathos and eloquent appeal, and is on the whole worthy of the almost extravagant praises which Barth and Kuinoel have bestowed upon it. It assumes the form of an address from a deceased wife, Cornelia, to her husband, Lucius ^Emiliua Paullus, who was censor in the year B. c. 22. Cornelia was the daughter of Scribonia, formerly wife of P. Cornelius Scipio, but subsequently married to Augustus. She was divorced by the latter on his marriage with Livia. He appears, indeed, to have left 4ier from her unamiable temper; " Perta3sus," says Suetonius, " ut scribit, morum perversitatem ejus." This is the la'/est of the poet's extant writings, the date being A. u. c T38, as appears from vs. 66. Paley. See Diet, of Biog. s. v. Lepidus, 19. 138 PROJ'EKTIU S. stop for Tantalus ; may Cerberus to-day forbear from mis- chievously snapping at any shades, and may the chain fall from the lock, and the door be still. I am pleading ' for my- self. If I am deceiving, may the persecuting urn, the punish- ment of the sisters,' 2 press on my shoulders. If the fame of ancestral trophies was ever an honour to any one, / can boast that the realms of Africa speak of my Numantine 3 ancestors. Another class comprises my maternal ancestors, the Libones, 4 of equal celebrity, and my family, on both sides, is exalted by its honours. Afterwards, when the maiden's dress had given way to the marriage-torch, and a new fillet, had bound my hair as a wedded wife, I was joined in wedlock to you, Paul- lus, doomed to be my only husband : on my tombstone I shall be read of as having been married to you alone. I call to witness the ashes of my ancestors, to be adored by thee, O Rome, below whose epitaphs, thou, O Africa, liest with shorn hair, and him who crushed Perses, 5 pretending to the courage of his ancestor Achilles, and thy house, O Perses, descended from Achilles, and that I was not the cause for relaxing the laws of the Censorship, and that your altars never blushed at any fault of mine. Cornelia did not prove a disgrace to such great trophies : nay more, she was a praiseworthy member even of her noble family. Nor did my life alter ; the whole of it is free from guilt : I lived a model from the marriage to the funeral-torch. Nature gave me principles inherited from my birth, so that I could not be better from fear of punish- ment. Let any jury pass a severe sentence on me : no one will be disgraced by contact with me. Neither thou, O Claudia, 6 who didst, after others had failed, move with a rope Cybelle, model attendant on the goddess with the crest of 1 I am pleading.} This is supposed to be the speech of Cornelia before the assembled tribunal of Orcus. 2 The sisters.~\ The Danaides. 3 Numantine.] P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus jEmilianus Minor, ob- tained the agnomen of Numantinus from Numantia in Spain, which he took B. c. 133. 4 We find mention of seven Scribonii Libones, after one of whom the Puteal Libonis was named. 4 Him who crushed Perses.~\ L. ^Em. Paullus Macedonicus. 1 Claudia.} She was a Vestal virgin, and accused of incontinence, upon which, to prove her innocence, she drew, with her own hand, an image of Cybelle off a shoal in the Tiber, though numbers of men had failed. See Ovid, Ftut. iv. 275 seq.; Livy, xxix. 14; Suet. Tib. 2. 139 towers r 1 nor thou, ^Emilia, under whose hands the white cloth kindled the fire, when Vesta claimed the flames intrusted to thee. Nor have I injured thee, my dear mother Scribonia. What, save my early doom, wouldst thou have changed in me ? My praise is sung in my mother's tears and in the city's regrets, and my bones have been protected by the grief of Caesar. He constantly asserts that a sister worthy of his daughter 2 is no more, and we have seen tears shed by a god. 3 Moreover, I gained the ennobling honours of the garment, 4 and I was not carried off without leaving any children. Thou, Lepidus, and thou, Paullus, wilt assuage my loss now that I am dead ; my eyes were closed in your arms. We also saw our brother 5 attain the double honours of the curule chair, at the time of whose consulship his sister was carried off. My daughter, born a proof of the strictness of thy father's morals, imitate me, and keep to one husband. Do you, my descend- ants, keep up the dignity of the family. The boat is ready for me, not against my will, since so many of mine are left to ennoble my lot. This is the highest glory and triumph for a woman, when report is kind, and praises her after death. Now I commend to you our children, pledges of our common love. This care lives, as it were, branded in my bones. Dis- charge a mother's duty, O father : all my troop of children will have to be carried on your neck. When you give them kisses, when they weep, add a mother's kisses. The burden of the whole house now begins to be yours. If you must needs grieve, grieve not in their presence : when they come, dry your cheeks, and kiss them with feigned cheerfulness. Let the nights that you wearily spend in thinking of me, Paullus, be enough for you, and the dreams often taken for visions of me : and when you talk in private to my portrait, speak each word as if it was going to answer you. But whe- ther a new marriage-bed be placed opposite the door, and a 1 Crest of towers.] Cybelle is always represented with a Corona Muralis. 8 His daughter.} Julia, the daughter of Augustus by Scribonia, would be Cornelia's half-sister. * A god.] Julius Csesar. 4 The garment.'] This appears to have been connected with the Jus Triutn Liberontm, but in what manner is uncertain. 4 Our brother.'} P. Cornelius Scipio was consul B. c. 16, with Do- icitius Aheuobarbus, having previously been aedile and praetor. 140 PROPERTIUS. Buspicious stepmother lie on a couch once mine, acquiesce in and submit to your father's marriage, my boy, his new wife will be captivated by your behaviour. Praise not your mother too much : if compared with a former wife, your stepmother will interpret your free talk as an insult to herself. Or if he respect my memory and remain contented with my shade, and think my ashes worthy of so much attention, learn to mark the very first approach of age, and let there be no way open to make him feel the misery of an unmarried man. May what has been taken from mine be added to your life-time : may Paullus delight in growing old from having my offspring : and it is well : as a mother I never put on mourning : all my company of children followed at my funeral. I have pleaded my cause. Witnesses, rise, and weep for me, while the grate- ful earth is paying the tribute to my worth when alive. To some virtues heaven has been opened : may I earn, 1 from my merits, the privilege of being one whose bones are conveyed into Elysium in triumph. 1 Eqttia, Paley: Others read oquia, avit (ad arc*), &c. THE ELEGIES OF PROPERTIUS. BOOK I. ELEGY I. TO TULLUS. CYNTHIA'S insnaring eyes my bondage tied : Ah wretch ! no loves, till then, had touch'd my breast Love bent to earth these looks of stedfast pride, And on my neck his foot triumphant press'd. He taught me, then, to loathe the virtuous fair, And shameless waste my wild and driftless hours : Twelve moons this madness lasts ; and yet my prayer Is breathed in hopeless love to adverse powers. Minalion, erst, could all adventures brave, Till Atalanta's barb'rous heart grew mild : Love-crazed he trod each drear Parthenian cave, And look'd on shaggy beasts in forests wild. Struck by the branch the monstrous Centaur sway'd, Midst shrill Arcadia's rocks he groaning fell ; And thus he tamed the nimble-footed maid : Thus love-prayers speed, and acts that merit well. In me no arts can tardy Love devise ; His foot can track no more the beaten ways : Come ye! that draw the moon from charmed skies! That bid the hearth in magic orgies blaze! 142 PROPERTIUS. Come ! turn a haughty mistress' marble hear";, And change her cheek, still paler than my own : Then will I trust, that stars obey your art, And rivers rush, by mutter'd verse alone. Friends ! that too late my sliding feet recall, Some antidote to this my frenzy bear : Bring steel ; bring flames and racks : I brave them all : But let me freely vent my fierce despair. Oh snatch me to the world's remotest shore ! Oh waft me o'er th' immeasurable main ! Where never woman may behold me more, Nor trace my way, to sting with her disdain ! Stay ye, to whom the listening god consents ; Safe in an equal yoke of fondness move ; But Venus all my bitter nights torments : No not a single hour is free from love. Beware my sufferings : hold the mistress dear Whose faith is tried, nor shift th' accustom'd sway : If to my voice ye bend a slothful ear, What pangs shall my remember'd words convey ! ELTON THE SAME. FIRST Cynthia's eyes this wretched heart subdued, Which ne'er before had sigh'd with am'rous pain ; When Love my unrelenting aspect bow'd, And trampled on my neck with proud disdain. At length the tyrant taught me to detest Chaste nymphs, and banish'd reason from my mind : Nor one whole year has the dire frenzy ceas'd ; Still Fate forbids my mistress to be kind ! No toils, O Tullus ! did Milanion dread, When Atalanta's pride he forc'd to yield ; Now to Parthenian caves he raging fled, Now bristly monsters daringly beheld. Struck by the pond'rous club which Hylaeus bore, Arcadia's rocks could witness each loud groan ; PROPERTIES. H3 Then braving danger, and the Centaur's power, The nimble-footed maid he nobly won. Thus pray'rs and gen'rous deeds will much avail In hopeless flames ; yet Love, a tardy friend, To me no arts, as usual, will reveal, No wily ways that to affection tend. But you, whose spells can draw the toil'd Moon down. Whose magic pyres can wailing ghosts appease, 0, let my Cynthia's will your influence own ! While her wan cheek a hue like mine displays: Then will I credit that yon starry height, That floods, Cytsean incantations rule And you, my friends, who warn me when too late, 0, bring relief, and heal my wounded soul ! Steel and fierce flames with patience I can bear, But what rage prompts with freedom let me say ; Waft me through farthest climes, through billows, where No prying nymph can track my distant way ! You, to whom Cupid with assenting nod Lends a kind ear, whom mutual love delights, Be happy still ! while me the cruel god Pursues, and Venus saddens all my nights. Be warn'd, ye blissful lovers, by my fate ; And from a nymph that 's kind forbear to stray ! Those who reject my counsel, when too late Shall think with keen remorse on all I say. Noir. ELEGY II. TO CYNTHIA. ON HER INORDINATE LOVE OF FINERY. WHY to walk forth, sweet life, thy tresses braid ? Why in the Coan garb's thin folds array'd ? Why with Orontes' myrrh thy locks imbue ? Thy beauty's price enhance by foreign show ? Why Nature's charms with purchas'd lustre hide, Nor let thy limbs disclose their genuine pride ? Trust me thy face wants no cosmetic's aid ; Love's naked god abhors the dressing trade: 144 PROPERTIUS. O, mark what blooms the painted earth displays, How of themselves best climb the ivy-.prays, How in lone caves arbutus lovelier grows, Through untaught channels how the streamlet flows, How native gems deckt shores spontaneous yield, And sweeter notes by untamed birds are trill'd ! Leucippus' daughter, beauteous Phoebe, fired Young Castor's bosom, with no gauds attired ; And her fair sister Hilai'ra too, As unadorn'd, delighted Pollux' view. No ostentatious ornaments could boast Evenus' offspring, on her native coast ; When once the nymph the cause of discord proved 'Twixt Idas, and the god who fondly loved. Nor Hippodamia, when the stranger's car In triumph bore away the virgin fair, By beauties borrow'd from the stores of art, Subdued to love her Phrygian husband's heart ; No jewels heighten'd her bright face, that show'd Such tints as in Apelles' pictures glow'd. Those heroines strove npt various loves to win, Enough for them by chastity to shine ; Yet sure in virtue thou canst vie with these ; She wants no charms, who can one lover please. Since thine is all that Phoebus can inspire, Thine fond Calliope's Aonian lyre, Thine the choice gift of pleasing speech, my fair, Thine all that's Beauty's, all that's Wisdom's care; 'Tis surely thine to gild my life with joy, But ne'er let odious pomp thy thoughts employ ! NOT* ELEGY III. CYNTHIA FOUND SLEEPING. As wrapt in slumbers lay the Cretan maid On the bleak coast, while Theseus' vessel fled ; [As from rude rocks Andromeda unbound, Slept her first sleep in freedom on the ground ;] l 1 As luo the fair Andromeda reposed, When first her limbs from the rude cliff were loosed. Nor- PfcOPEKTITTS. 115 And as the Ma:nas, with long rites opprost, Sinks on Apidanus' preen marge to rest: So Cynthia slept, soft breathing, while her arras Feebly sustain'd her head's reclining charms : When to the nymph my reeling steps I bore, And the boy's midnight torch blazed on before. Nor yet were all my wand'ring senses fled, Eager I sought the nymph's soft-printed bed: And, though my heart a twofold impulse sway'd, Though Love, though Bacchus, gods by all obey'd, Bade me attempt her with a soft embrace, Kiss her ripe lips, and rifle every grace ; Still I ne'er ventur'd to awake my love, Lest with her wonted scorn she might reprove ; But my fond ejes, that from her charms ne'er stray'd, Those charms in silent ecstasy survey'd : Not more intent could [Argus scan, I trow,] 1 To, unconscious of her budding brow. Now from my head the chaplet I unbound, And with the wreath my Cynthia's temples crown'dj Now I adjusted, with assiduous care, The loosen'd plaits of her disorder'd hair ; Or to her hollow palm, which passive lay, With ani'rous stealth an apple I'd convey. Such fondness, lavish'd on thy thankless rest, Seern'd as rejected by thy rising breast: Oft when I saw thee heave the deep-fetch'd sigh, Methought some danger it portended nigh ; That fears unusual did thy dreams invade, And that some fancied rival forced my maid. Now through the fronting windows gleam'd the moon, Whose ling'ring lustre too officious shone ; The silver radiance oped her slumb'ring eyes, Then with uplifted head she sweetly cries : "And dost thou to my bed at length repair, Debarr'd access to some more fav'rite fair ? Enfeebled youth, to these fond arms untrue, Where didst thou waste the night to Cynthia due? wakeful Argus view. NOTT. L 146 PROPEUTIUS. Ah, long, long night ! for lo ! in yonder skies Each star's faint beam before the morning flies : Oh, would heaven grant, unfaithful wretch, 'twere thine To wear away such tedious nights as mine ! By turns I tried the loom's impurpled toil, The tuneful lyre, and fain would sleep beguile : [Sometimes I thought for prone art thou to stray ]' That, some new love had caus'd thy long delay; Till Morpheus waved his glad wings o'er my head ; Thus the fierce torrent of my tears was stay'd." NOTT. ELEGY IV. TO BASSUS ; PROFESSING UNALTERABLE ATTACHMENT TO CYNTHIA. TELL me, why thus extol each various maid ? To quit my love would Bassus then persuade ? Why not allow, while this poor life remains, To hug with transport my accustom'd chains ? Now sweet Antiope of Nyctaean race, Now bright Hermione the Spartan Grace, All who adorn this beauty-boasting age, Thy commendation in their turns engage : But learn, that Cynthia from the list of fame Can with her charms erase the fairest name ; [Much less, with meaner beauties matched, shall she, Judge her who may, come off ingloriously.] 1 But think not, Bassus, 'twas her form alone, Superior talents my affection won : Her pure complexion, that no art had stain'd ; The various rare endowments she attain'd ; And the rich joys which well she could impart Beneath the bed's mute covering, gain'd my heart. Strive all thou canst our loves to disunite, And still more strong our mutual faith we'll plight ; Vengeful I'll tell thy arts, my nymph shall rage, No silent war with thee shall Cynthia wage ; 1 Sometimes I wept ; then thought, forsook by thee. NOTT. With meaner beauties then her beauties place, And vulgar judges must their worth confess. NOTT. PROPERTIUS. 147 Urged by thy crimes, she '11 treat thee with neglect ; Warn me henceforth thy converse to reject ; [With all our girls she'll bring thee in disgrace ; They'll slam their doors in thy unlucky facs,] 2 Her wrathful tears shall on each altar run, On all that 's sacred, on each hallow'd stone : No loss can Cynthia with less patience bear Than when Love robs her of what most is dear, Robs her of me Thus long may she remain, Nor ever let her am'rous bard complain ! NOTT. ELEGY V. TO GALLUS. RIVAL ! at length thy odious speech restrain, And let us each an equal path maintain : Wouldst thou, rash mortal, tempt the pangs I bear ? Ah, wretch ! th' extremes of misery to dare, Flames yet untried thus madly to explore, And swallow all Thessalia's pois'nous store. Cynthia, unlike the varying harlot crew, With fixt revenge will each offence pursue ; And should she haply grant our bold request, Oh, with what cares thy peace she would molest ! She'd break thy sleep, thine eyes with tears she'd drown, To bind the proudest soul is hers alone : Oft as despis'd thou'lt to my friendship fly, And thy vain boasts shall vanish with a sigh ; A thrilling horror shall succeed thy tears, Thy livid cheek betray thy am'rous fears, Thy falt'ring tongue in vain would speak thy woe, And where, or what thou art, thou scarce shalt know : Then learn how hard a bondage is thy doom, How hard to live an exile from her home ; Then at the love-sick paleness of my face, At my lank frame, shall all thy wonder cease ; Thy noble lineage thou shalt boast in vain, Love will thy statued ancestors disdain ; And if in part thou but reveal'st thy flame, Thy birth with scoffers shall increase thy shame. 1 In female circles she '11 thy name traduce, Till every nymph will banish thee her house. NOTT . L 2 148 PROrERTius.; To thee shall I deny the ask'd relief, As yet no med'cine has allay'd my grie: ; One fate involves us both ; alike distrest, Our tears we'll mingle on each other's breast. To tempt her rigour, Gallus, then forbear ; Cynthia will punish each presumptuous prayer. NOTT. ELEGY VI. TO TULLUS; REFUSING AN INVITATION TO TRAVEL. THINK not I fear to tempt the Adrian sea, Or plough, my friend, .ZEgaean waves with thee : With thee Riphaean heights I'd traverse o'erj And ^Ethiopia's farthest lands explore : But me detains the fond encircling fair, Her words, her changeful bloom, her ardent prayer ; Now through whole nights my passion she'll upbraid, Vows there's no gods in heaven, since thus betray'd : Now she refuses to be mine ; and then Threats all that weeping maids can threat false men. And shall I bear one hour that she should mourn ? Perish the wretch, whose flame thus faint could burn ! Can learned Athens yield so much delight, Can Asia's boasted wealth so charm the sight ; That, when my vessel's launch'd into the main, Cynthia with keen invectives should complain ; With desperate hands her beauteous face assail, And piteous tell, how the un favouring gale Wafts far away those kisses that are due ; How nought's so hard to bear as love untrue? Go then, surpass thy uncle's honour'd reign, Thy lost compatriots' ancient rights regain. No am'rous indolence thy temper charm'd, Thou in thy country's cause wert ever arm'd ; Cupid ne'er taught thee to endure my cares, Or wish for death to stay thy ceaseless tears : Th' extremes of fortune since I'm doom'd to pr. ve, O, let me give my soul a loose to love ! To lasting flames some willing martyrs die, And midst that number let my relics lie ; PROPERTIUS. 149 Not born for martial toil, or aught that's great, Beneath Love's banners I enlist my fate. Shouldst thou Ionia's wanton soil explore, Or where Pactolus bathes rich Lydia's shore ; Shouldst thou earth's regions tread, or ocean dare, Or watch that empire trusted to thy care ; Still think, if chance remind thee of thy friend, That baleful planets on his life attend. NOTT. ELEGY VII. TO PONTICUS. IN VINDICATION OF THE MERITS OF EIIOTIC POETRY. WHILE, Ponticus, Cadmean Thebes you sing, And the dire wars which feuds fraternal bring ; While you, I vow, must share great Homer's praise, Should the Fates smile propitious on your lays ; My muse with wonted voice of love complains, And strives to soothe fierce beauty with its strains : 'Tis grief, not genius, bids my numbers flow, Bids me bewail life's unabating woe : Such is the race I run ; be this my fame, Hence let my song acquire a deathless name ! Mine is renown, because th' accomplish'd fair None else could charm, or her proud menace dare : Neglected lovers, study then my lore, And gather wisdom from the wrongs I bore ! But if the wanton god should once [lay low Thy stubborn pride,] ' with his unerring bow ; (Yet may the am'rous powers, that rule my mind, Not yet for thee the thread of love unwind !) Then shall thy camps, then thy seven legions die, And in the dust for ever silent lie ; Then shalt thou strive to write soft verse in vain, For Love so late invok'd will thee disdain ; Then, no mean bard, me shalt thou oft admire, As I to Roman wit's first seat aspire ; -subdue Thy untaught heart. NOTT. 150 PROPERT1US. And youths shall say, while o'er ray tomb they dwell, Here sleeps the bard who sang our loves so well. But let not epic pride disdain my lay, Such scorn at last Love amply will repay. NOTT. ELEGY VIII. TO CYNTHIA. ON HER PROPOSED DEPARTURE TO 1LLYRIA. ART mad ? nor can my cares thy flight beguile ? Am I than cold Illyria's coast more vile ? [Thou lik'st this fellow then so much, thou'lt go Without me, whatsoever wind may blow.] ' Canst thou, my Cynthia, hear the roaring deep Unmoved ; and in the hard rough vessel sleep ? Can thy soft feet divide the frosts below ? And canst thou bear unusual drifts of snow ? Oh, double be the winter's rude domain ! Let ling'ring seamen ling'ring stars detain ! On Tyrrhene shores still let thy cable stay, Nor snatch th' unfriendly blast my prayers away ! Ne'er let my eyes behold these winds subside, When thy launch'd ship shall cleave the boist'rous tide, And force me on the desert shore forlorn With wretched hands to blame thy cruel scorn ! Yet treat me as thou wilt, thou perjur'd maid, May Galatea still thy passage aid ! And Oricum's calm coast, Ceraunia past With prosp'rous oars, receive thee safe at last ! No second passion shall my bosom stain ; Still will I haunt thy door, and still complain ; And to each sailor, as he hastens by, What port now shelters Cynthia? will I cry: Whether on Atrax', or on Elis' plain, The nymph abide, she shall be mine again Here shall she come ! here, having sworn, she'll stay ! Conquest is mine ! my foes now pine away ! 1 Is then this upstart wretch indeed so dear, That without me thou any wind wouldst share ? NOTT. PROPERTIES. 151 For well I knew, such faithful constant prayer My mistress' gentle bosom could not bear : Let carping malice her false joys lay by, My Cynthia hence desists new paths to try : She loves me, loves e'en Rome too for my sake ; And crowns she'd scorn, unless I crowns partake; Had rather on some little bed recline, Content in any manner to be mine, Than Hippodamia's regal dower obtain, Or the vast treasures Elis' horses gain : Though large his gifts, his promises though great, Her heart, not selfish, courts my humble state : 'Tis not with Eastern shells, or gold, I move ; 'Tis with the soothings of the muse I love. Nor Phoebus, nor the Nine, a lover shun ; On these I rest, and Cynthia is my own : Now sure I tread where highest planets shine, By night, by day, is peerless Cynthia mine ! No more a rival can supplant my flame, Hence my white hairs shall lasting glory claim. NOTT. ELEGY IX. TO PONTICUS. ON HIS AMOUR WITH HIS SLAVE GIRL. I TOLD thee, scoffer, thou shouldst wear Love's chain, Thy vaunting speech ere long thou shouldst restrain : Lo ! to the nymph a suppliant wretch art thou ; And she, so late thy slave, is mistress now : [I, like Chaonian doves, can augur shrewd What youths shall languish, by what nymphs subdued. ] With grief and tears this skill I've dearly bought ; Oh, were I free from love, and still untaught ! Say, wretch, what now avails thy epic swell ; Or of Amphion's lyre-built walls to tell ? In love, Mimnermus above Homer rose ; Bland Cupid seeks the strain that sweetly flows : Go then, aside thy lays disastrous throw, And sing what every maid would wish to know I 1 Sure as Chaonian doves, I can frrelni What youths shall beauty's powerful influence feel. NOT*.. 152 .PROPER-HITS. [What if no theme were ready to thy hand ? Lack water, blockhead ! and in mid-stream stand!] 1 Nor yet thou'rt pale, no real flames you prove ; This the first kindling spark of future love : Armenian tigers soon thou'lt rather dare, Or on the wheel Ixion's torture bear, Than feel the pangs Love's powerful shafts convey, And a tyrannic nymph's command obey ; For Cupid never lends such flatt'ring wings, But joy and grief alternately he brings. By her obedience be not thou misled ; The more she's thine, the more her influence dread Think not, when none but her thou joy'st to view, Liv'st for none else, thou canst thy flame subdue ; Not till the wasted frame our ill declares, The dire effect of pois'nous love appears : O shun, whoe'er thou art that read'st my lays, Shun those officious blandishments that please ! O'er rocks and oaks such blandishments prevail ; Suits then resistance with a wretch so frail ? If shame forbids not, thy fond errors tell ; Oft it relieves, our passion to reveal. NOTT. ELEGY X. TO GALLUS. CONGRATULATIONS AND ADVICE. O BLISSFUL night, when [I, who'd seen thy weeping, Saw thy crown'd love its first glad vigil keeping ! Oh the delicious memory of that night ! Oh source to me of oft-renew'd delight ! ] ' 'Twas then I saw thee, breathless, speechless, laid ; Entwined, O Gallus ! by thy circling maid : Though scarce my drowsy eyes from sleep refrain'd, Though their mid sky the red Moon's steeds had gain'd ; 1 What, -were thy nymph of hard access ? since now Thy thirst 's unquench'd 'mid waves that freely flow. NOTT, thy first loves I view'd ! I, who erst saw each am'rous tear that flow'd : O blissful rapture, which that night endears ! Oft I Ml invoke it in my tender prayers. NOTT. PROPERTIUS. ] 53 Still from those raptures I could not depart, Your mutual murmurs breathed such warmth of heart. But since to me thou hast thy joys declar'd, Let this thy am'rous confidence reward : I've learnt not only to conceal thy grief; My faith, dear friend, can yield still more relief; 'Tis mine the parted pair to reunite, And ope the door that's shut by beauty's spite; 'Tis mine to heal the lover's recent wound, And in my counsel no small virtue's found: 'Twas Love, 'twas Cynthia, did my judgment guide; They taught me what to seek, and what avoid. Ne'er thwart the nymph, if anger she puts on ; Fastidious speech and tedious silence shun ; Never unkindly what she asks deny, Nor from thy mind let one fond promise fly : Wrathful she'll prove, if thou shouldst once disdain ; And if offended, her just wrath maintain: The more thou'rt humble, and subdued to Love, The more delicious sweets thou'rt sure to prove. He with one nymph will live contented most, Whose captive heart of no free choice can boast. NOTT ELEGY XI. TO CYNTHIA. IN ABSENCE. IMMERS'D in joys midst Baiae's gay abode, Near which extends the Herculean road ; Delighting now Thesprotia to [behold, And now the waves near great Misenum roll'djj 1 Say, does the mem'ry of past nights remain ? And dost thou, far removed, thy love maintain ? Does some strange rival, with dissembled flame, From my fond page blot out my Cynthia's name ? O, wouldst thou rather on the Lucrine tide Some little skiff with slender paddles guide ! survey, Now great Misenum, wash'd by subject sea. NOTT. 154 PKOPERTIUS. Or shelter'd secret on clear Teuthras' wave, With pliant arms the yielding waters cleave ; Than, soft reclined upon the tranquil beach, List to some lover's bland insidious speech : So the frail beauty, who escapes her spies, Sins, and forgets love's common deities. Not but that fame bespeaks thy conduct just ; Yet, such thy state, (he lover will mistrust : O, pardon then, if e'er my erring song Suspicion breathed ! from fear my guilt has sprung : Dear is thy safety, as a mother's dear ! For life without thee were not worth my care ! Thou, Cynthia ! parent, kindred, art to me ; All, all my pleasures are comprised in thee ! If sad, if mirthful, to my friends I seem, I'll say 'tis Cynthia does my temper frame. Haste then from Baiae's dissolute retreat ; With am'rous discord are those shores replete, Shores that to virtuous nymphs most hostile prove : Ah, perish Bail's stream, that bane of love ! NOTT. ELEGY XII. TO A FRIEND. ON CYNTHIA'S ABSENCE. WHY ceaselessly my fancied sloth upbraid, As still at conscious Rome by love delay'd ? Wide as the Po from Hypanis is spread The distance that divides her from my bed. No more with fondling arms she folds me round, Nor in my ear her dulcet whispers sound. Once I was dear ; nor e'er could lover burn With such a tender and a true return. Yes I was envied hath some god above Crush'd me ? or magic herb, that severs love, Gather'd on Caucasus, bewitch'd my flame ? Nymphs change by distance : I'm no more the sam. Oh what a love has fleeted like the wind, And left no vestige of its trace behind ! Now sad I count the ling'ring nights alone ; And my own ears are startled by my groan. PROPERT1U8. 15o Happy ! the youth who weeps, his mistress nigh ; Love with such tears has mingled ecstasy : Blest, who, when scorn'd, can change his passing heat ; The pleasures of translated bonds are sweet. I can no other love ; nor hence depart ; For Cynthia, first and last, is mistress of my heart. ELTO*. THE SAME. WHY tax me still with criminal delay, Because at Rome, at conscious Rome, I stay ? Far distant from these arms is Cynthia now ; Far as from Hypanis, Venetian Po : To nurse my wonted flame, no more the fair Folds me, or whispers rapture in mine ear. There was a time when the dear nymph I charm d, No bosoms then such faithful passion warm'd ; But soon to envy were we doom'd a prey, Some jealous god sure snatch'd our bliss away : Or the curs'd power of noxious herbs, that grew On steeps Promethean, broke a love so true : Changed is my fate, by distance changed the maid ! And, ah, how sudden is affection fled ! Now tedious nights I'm forced to waste alone, And my own ears I vex with ceaseless moan : Thrice happy he, who to some present fair Can weep ; for Love enjoys the falling tear ! Or, if neglected, can his flame remove ; For change of bondage gives a gust to love Pleas'd with one nymph, from her I '11 not depart ; Cynthia first charm'd, and last shall charm my heart ! NOTT ELEGY XIII. TO GALLTJS. IN PRAISE OF HIS MISTRESS. [LAUGH, as thou'rt wont, to see me sit forlorn, Left, Gall us, by my truant nymph to mourn ;] ! * Still, as thou 'rt wont, with mirth my woes deride ; While I forlorn lament a mistress fled. NOTT. 1 56 PROPERT1US. Yet, faithless youth, I '11 not thy taunts return ; No female falsehood may my Gallus mourn ! While nymphs betray'd increase thy am'rous fame, While fickle still thou rov'st from flame to flame ; Yet for one fair at length thy cheeks grow pale, And in the first attack thy efforts fail ! One shall avenge full many a slighted maid, By one the wrongs of thousands be repaid ! One shall each vagrant looser love constrain, And no new conquest shalt thou strive to gain ! Untaught by fame, unskill'd in prophecy, I ve seen and canst thou what I saw deny ? Lock'd to her neck, I've seen thee panting laid ; I've seen thy tears ; thine arms thrown round the maid; On her dear lips I've seen thee wish to die; Nay wish those things, which shame must needs pass by, Not e'en my presence could your raptures stay, Such raging passions bore your souls away ; Less fond the god whom Taenarus adores, When with Enipeus, through Haemonian shores, He mixt his waves ; and to his fraudful breast The beauteous daughter of Salmoneus prest : Less fond Alcides, when from CEta's height He rose to regions of eternal light. And first enfolded in his longing arms Celestial Hebe's ever-blooming charms. One day ! and thine exceeds all former fires ; No lukewarm flame thy beauteous maid inspires ; [Thy old disdain she lets thee not renew ; No more thou 'It swerve ; passion shall keep thee true."] Nor is it strange that such should be thy love, When thy bright fair might grace the arms of Jove : As Leda's self, or Leda's daughter fair, She with the beauteous three might well compare ; Not Argive heroines with her charms can vie, Her speech might win the ruler of the sky. Since doom'd to passion, let thy flame burn on ; Of her thou'rt worthy, and of her alone: 1 She wills ; past pride no longer can avail, No wand'rer thou ; her power thy breast shall feel ! Norr. PROPEKT1US. 157 New is thy love, so prosp'rous may it be ! And let this nymph be every nymph to thee. NOTT. ELEGY XIV. TO TULLUS. LOVE PREFERRED TO WEALTH. Go then, on Tiber's velvet banks recline ; And in Mentorean cups quaff Lesbian wine: Go view thy rapid wherries cleave the tide, Or drawn by cords thy barges slowly glide ; View thy tall trees their cultur'd ranges spread, Like woods that burden'd Caucasus o'ershade; Yet what are these compar'd with my fond joys ? Love will not yield to all that wealth supplies ! Methinks if e'er with' me she spends the night, Or kindly wastes the day in dear delight ; Beneath my roof Pactolus rolls its stores, And gems I cull on Erythraean shores: Then beyond kings my joys proclaim me blest; May these remain, while life shall warm this breast'. If cross'd in passion, who will riches heed ? When Venus smiles not, then we're poor indeed ! She lays the hero's boasted vigour low, 'Tis Venus melts the hardest heart to woe ; She on Arabian thresholds dares to tread, Tli' empurpled couch, O Tullus ! dares invade; She on his bed can stretch the sighing swain, Then o'er it spreads the pictur'd silk in vain. > Propitious prove, thou charmer of the skies ! And thrones I'll scorn, Alcinous' wealth despise ! NOTT. ELEGY XV. TO CYNTHIA. REPROACHING HER INDIFFERENCE. OFT has thy frailty, Cynthia, moved my fear : But this deceit I little thought to bear : Ah, see what dangers Fortune round me throws J Yet art thou slow to heed my dreaded woes : Thy wanton fingers still new-braid thy hair, Adjust thy person with protracted care; 1 58 FROPERTIUS. Still Eastern gems irradiate all thy breast ; So shines some nymph lor her new bridegroom drest. Not thus Calypso, on the desert shore, Did once her flying Ithacus deplore ; With scatter'd locks for many a day sat she All mournful, and reproach'd the faithless sea ; Though he was doom'd no more to charm her sight, She sooth'd her grief with thoughts of past delight. Alphesiboaa, with her brothers' breath, Fondly avenged her much-loved husband's death ; And love, uxorious love ! in her withstood Those ties by most held dear, the ties of blood ! Not thus when Jason far, far distant sail'd, Her widow'd bed Hypsipyle bewail'd ; She let no second fires inflame* her breast, But languish'd still for her Hagmonian guest. Evadne, first mid virtuous Argives placed, Breathed on her husband's parting pyre her last: Yet such examples can't thy mind engage, Like these, to grace the bright historic page ! Cynthia, no more repeat thy perjuries, Nor rouse the slumb'ring vengeance of the skies ! Too daring wretch ! some sad reverse of fate Shall haply teach thee to lament my state. Rather may floods glide noiseless to the main, Or through the year inverted seasons reign ; Than in my breast this passion should decline, Or thou, whate'er thou art, shouldst not be mine , Than I should gaze with hatred on those eyes, Which oft have smiled such pleasing perfidies ! By these thou'st sworn, that if thy faith betray'd One vow, those hands should tear them from thy head ! And canst thou lift them to yon glorious Sun, Nor conscious dread those wrongs which thou hast done ? Who forced thy cheeks to wear this varying hue, Or bade unwilling tears thine eyes bedew ? O witless youths ! like me who sadly sigh, Trust not those blandishments by which I die. Noxr. PROPEKTITJS. 1 f)$ ELEGY XVI. THE COMPLAINT OF THE WANTON'S DOOR OPEN to splendid triumphs once was I, No stranger to Tarpeian Chastity ; My threshold, bathed with captives' suppliant tears, Has gain'd renown from gold-emblazon'd cars ; But vext with drunkards' midnight broils, and beat By impious hands, I now lament my fate ; With unchaste wreaths I 'm hung ; and oft is seen Some torch extinct that speaks th' excluded swain : My mistress's lewd nights I can't deny ; So known, so drest with bawdy rhymes am I ! Nor will she learn a virtuous name to prize, Or shun, less vile, this age of luxuries: While, from a suppliant's plaint more piteous grown, His long, long vigils I with tears bemoan ; My wakeful frame is ever doom'd to hear The silver flatt'ry of his tuneful prayer. " O door, more cruel than thy mistress, why Do thy mute valves, unkind, access deny ? Wilt thou ne'er open to my am'rous woe ; Or, kindly moved, report each secret vow ? Shall nought at length my ceaseless sorrows charm ? Shall my rude slumbers still thy threshold warm ? E'en waning stars, e'en midnight's hallow'd reign, And the chill breath of morn regard my pain ; Thou, only thou ! untouch'd by human grief, On silent hinges hung, deniest relief: O, much I wish, some pervious cleft could bear My murmur'd accents to her wond'ring ear ! As ^Etna's rocks unfeeling were the fair, Let her with iron or with steel compare ; Yet sure soft pity would bedew her eyes, And midst her tears she'd heave unbidden sighs. While some loved youth now folds her with delight, Pour'd is my moan on the vain blast of night. O door ! thou sole chief cause : f all my woe, Nol bribed by all the off'rings I bestow, Thee with rude phrase my tongue did ne'er ill-treat, Such phrase as youths, when vext, to doors repeat ; That I, grown hoarse with frequent wail, should meet Such long neglect, and nightly range the street ! Oft in choice verse for thee I framed the song, And to thy steps my warmest kisses clung ; Turn'd to thy frame, vile thing ! how oft I've stood, And paid with secret hand each vow I owed." These, and such plaints as suit a swain forlorn, He '11 urge, and stun the clam'rous birds of morn : Thus the still-weeping youth, and lustful dame, Brand with eternal infamy my frame. NOTT. ELEGY XVII. REPININGS AT SEA. AND justly sure, since from the nymph I fled, To the lorn halcyons am I doom'd to plead ; My bark Cassiope regards no more, Lost are my vows upon the faithless shore ! For absent Cynthia are the blasts combined ; Hark, how hoarse vengeance murmurs in each wind ! Shall no kind fortune smooth the billowy waste ? On these mean sands shall my wreckt bones be cast ? Thy imprecations spare ! for yon black skies, Yon dangerous shoals, thy vengeance should suffice : Tearless couldst thou compose my corse, and strain To thy fond breast the ashes that remain ? Perish the wretch ! who first upon the sea Placed barks and sails, and plough'd th' unbidden way ! Ah, sweeter far a mistress to persuade ! (For though hard-hearted, matchless is my maid !) Than thus to view strange woods surround the shore, And the Twin-brothers ardently implore ; Should fate, where dwells the nymph, inter my woea, And the sad stone mark where her loves repose ; With her dear tresses sure she'll dress my tomb, And in my urn bid short-lived roses bloom I Oft to my latest dust my name address ; So might the turf my relics lightly press ! PROPERT1US. 161 And you, ye Nereids, from fair Doris spiung, Loose the white sails, and come a prosp'rous throng ! If Love from heaven e'er sought your moist abode, Give stormless shores to one who serves that god ! NOTT. ELEGY XVIII. 'THE LOVER'S SOLILOQUY ON CYNTHIA'S CRUELTY. LONESOME these glooms, and peaceful to lorn swains ; Along th' unpeopled grove bland Zephyr reigns : Here may we dare our secret griefs to tell, For desert rocks those griefs will ne'er reveal. Whence, O my Cynthia ! shall I date thy scory ? When was it first that Cynthia bade me mourn ? I, who late bore a happy lover's name, Now see my passion doom'd to fatal shame ! Why treat me thus ? what spell subverts thy love ? Say, does some rival nymph thy hatred move ? As to my home no stranger fair has borne Her steps ; so may'st thou, credulous ! return ; And though to thee their sting my sorrows owe, Not so resentful shall my anger flow, That thou shouldst e'er grow frantic with despair, And thy swoll'n eyes the recent tear declare. Say, does neglect my change of love proclaim ? And do no vows breathe forth my am'rous flame * Witness, thou beech ! (if trees make love their care,) And by Arcadia's god, thou pine ! held dear ; How your green shades my song has vocal made, And CYNTHIA'S name your letter'd rinds display'd: Say, do my cares spring from thy wrongs alone ': Those cares, which only to mute doors are known ! Fearful I wont thy dictates to obey, Nor loudly murmur'd at thy haughty sway : For this, ye gelid rocks ! ye founts divine ! In these wild haunts is sleepless torment mine ; For this ! I 'm doom'd, alone to tuneful choira To sing whate'er my tender woe inspires. H 162 PROPEKT1TJS. But true, or faithless, be my Cynthia found ; CYNTHIA'S sweet name let woods and hills resound ! NOTT. ELEGY XIX. TO CYNTHIA. PROFESSIONS OF UNALTERABLE ATTACHMENT. I FEAR not, Cynthia, through death's gloom to stray, Nor would the funeral pile's last debt delay ; But lest thy fondness with my life expire, Brings dread far greater than the fatal pyre. Caught were these eyes by no faint spark of love, For e'en my dust shall ne'er oblivious prove : The brave Protesilaus, in realms of night, Could not forget his bosom's sole delight ; But the Thessalian ghost, to press the dame With airy grasp, to his loved mansion came. Yet, in those realms whate'er the change I prove, Thy faithful shade shall never change in love ! Passions so vast as mine are wafted o'er The lurid wave, and reach the Stygian shore : Yes ! to those realms let all the Dardan fair, Heroines a prize to Argive chiefs, repair ; Still none to me will look like Cynthia bright ; And sacred Earth shall deem my judgment right ! To wan old age should fate prolong thy years, E'en in the shades thy death I'll mourn with tears: O feel ! while living, all I feel for thee ; And then content I'll die, whate'er it be. Ah, Cynthia ! much I fear, lest Love unjust Teach thee to shun my grave, and spurn my dust ; Force thee to stay the torrent of thy tears ; For firmest hearts will yield to ceaseless prayers. Then let's improve short pleasures while we may, An age of passion seems but as a day. NOTT. ELEGY XX. TO GALL US. THE DEATH OF HYLAS. BE warn'd by friendship, which thou long hast tried ; Nor let my precepts from thy mein'ry slide : PROPERTIUS. 163 Dire fate attends whoe'er lias rashly loved; Ascanius baleful to the Minyae proved. Alike thy Hylas, both in name and face, To him who boasts Thiodamantean race : Then, whether coasting on the wood-hung wave, Whether thy footsteps Anio's waters lave, Whether thou roam'st the Giant-peopled shore, Or fliest, a vagrant guest, where torrents pour ; Still of the am'rous Nymphs, fond thefts beware. Ausonian Dryads too make love their care : Not to cool rocks or rugged mountains stray ; Nor to enamour'd lakes e'er bend thy way ; Wand'ring to foreign climes, Alcides tried All these, and wept by cold Ascanius' side. Once from the Pagasean port, 'tis said, The Argo sail'd, and far as Phasis fled ; Then o'er the Hellespont the vessel pass'd, And Mysia's rocky haven reach'd at last : Here the brave throng the grateful shore o'erspread, And on the turf with leaves they form'd their bed : Meanwhile th' unconquer'd hero's boy went on, To find the scarce stream's secret fount alone ; Zethes and Calais, twins from Boreas sprung, Pursued him close, and pressing round him hung ; Pois'd by their hands, they bear each kiss supine Aloft, and snatch by turns the theft divine ; Uprais'd in air, the youth avoids th' embrace, And in their wings' last shelter hides his face ; Then with a little bough he soon removes The swift attacks of their insidious loves. And now Orithyia's sons, of Pandion race, Foil'd in th' attempt, gave o'er their am'rous chase { When Hylas onward hasten'd to his doom, And sought, ah grief ! the Hamadryads' home. Beneath Arganthus' lofty height there stood A fount, the Thynian Naiads' moist abode ; On the wild trees, that deckt its margin, grew, Estrang'd to culture, apples fad with dew; M 2 164 PROPERTIUS. And lilies in the dank surrounding meads, 'Mid crimson poppies rear'd their silver heada t To cull these ilow'rs with artless fingers went The boy, unmindful of his first intent ; Then near the painted wave unconscious lay, And his reflected charms prolong'd his stay ; At length, with hands plung'd in, the wave he sought ; His right arm lab'ring with the vase full fraught : The Dryad-maids, whom his fair beauties fir'd, Forsook their choral frolics, and admir'd ; As Hylas fell, beneath the yielding flood They drew the boy, who wept his rape aloud ; Far off Alcides answer'd as he mourn'd, And echo from deep founts his name return'd. Thus warn'd, O Gallus ! watch thy love with care ; Nor trust with nymphs a youth like Hylas fair. NOTT ELEGY XXI. THE MURDERED SOLDIER, THOU ! who the battle's common fate hast fled, Hast by a wound from Tuscan ramparts bled, Why for my loss roll thy swolPn eyes in tears ? Because I late partook thy martial cares : O warrior ! let thy pearly sorrows tell To my lov'd Acca, how her brother fell ; So may thy parents greet thy safe return ! Tell her, how Gallus, who, through dangers borne Mid Caesar's armed legions, death defied, At last by hands of unknown ruffians died : And learn, O stranger ! when loose bones you see On Tyrrhene heights, those bones belong to me. NOTT. ELEGY XXII. TO TULLUS. ON THE AUTHOR'S BIRTH-PLACE. MY race, my nation, fain would Tullus know ; Long friendship sure the question will allow :- No stranger thou to fam'd Perusia's war, In which my ruin : d country bore its share ; PROPERTIUS. 165 What time Italia labour'd with her doom, And discord arm'd the citizens of Rome. (Etruria ! thou chief cause of all my woe ; Ah wretched soil ! that basely couldst allow My kinsman's corse unburied to remain, Nor let some scanty sod his bones contain.) Then, bord'ring on this spot of conquer'd earth, Umbria's rich meadows lie, which gave me birth. NOTT. BOOK II. ELEGY II. ON HIMSELF. AH ! thou, that vaunted'st nought could harm thy breast, Art caught : that haughty spirit crouches tame : Scarce one short month art thou content to rest. And lo ! another love-book speaks thy shame. Late I was free ; my sleep without a thorn ; In widow'd bed, and single quiet laid ; I trusted to the peace which Love had sworn, But false and hollow was the truce he made. I sought if fishes on the sands might live, Or the wild boar through seas accustom'd stray: If wakeful studies might abstraction give : Love, though deferr'd, is never chased away. As from his neck the bull shakes fierce the plough, But soon bends mildly to the wonted yoke : Young lovers blustering chafe, but humbled bow, And tamely bear each light and heavy stroke. Inglorious chains Melampus patient took, Who stole from Iphiclus his herds away; Not gain compell'd, but Pero's lovely look : Thus in his brother's arms a bride she lay. 16b PROPERTIUS. 'Twas not her face, though fair, that caught my sight f Less fair the lily's bell : as Scythian snows Should blend with Ebro's red their virgin white, Or in pure cream as floats the scatter'd rose : Not tresses, that enring'd in crisped twine, Flow loose with their accustom'd careless art Down her smooth marble neck ; nor eyes that shine, Torches of passion ; load-stars of my heart : Not that through silken folds of Araby The nymph's fine limbs with lucid motion gleam ; (For no ideal beauties heaves my sigh ; Nor airy nothings prompt my amorous dream:) Not all so charms, as when aside she lays The mantling cup, and glides before my view ; Graceful as Ariadne through the maze Of choral dance with Bacchic revellers flew : Or when, inspired by Aganippe's stream, O'er Sappho's lyre with sportive touch she strays ; And challenges Corinna's ancient theme, And coldly listens to Erinne's lays. When first, sweet soul ! you saw the light of heaven, Did Love with clear, shrill-echoed omen sneeze ? The gods have all thy rare endowments given ; The gods have given, nor from thy mother these. Not these the fruit of merely human birth, Nor ten short moons matured thy every grace ; Thou art the glory of our Roman earth, A bride for Jove, the first of Roman race : Not always on my mortal couch to lie, A second Helen treads this earthly ball ; What wonder, that our youth in ardour sigh ? For her, O Troy ! more splendid were thy fall. I once admired, that for a woman's eyes Round Ilium's ramparts Europe, Asia, strove: Wise Paris was, and Menelaus wise, Who clairn'd, and who refused, the cause of love 1 PROPERTITJS. 1 6 But hers are charms that might Achilles bend, Might warm old Priam, and might sanction war; Hers ancient paintings' breathing forms transcend, To all of pictured fame superior far. To west and east her blooming portrait show, Both east and west she shall inflame with love: Why tarries she in human form below ? Thy ancient gallantries I pardon, Jove ! Yellow her hair ; her shapely hands are long ; Tall her fine form, and Juno-like she treads: So Pallas walks Dulichian shrines among, While her broad breast the snaky mail o'erspreads. Such as Ischomache, the heroine-bride, When rape of wine-flushed Centaurs dared her charms : Such virgin Brimo, nothing loth, beside Beboeis' fountain sank in Hermes' arms. Yield, goddesses ! whom erst the shepherd saw Disrobe your limbs in Ida's mountain-glade : May never age its lines transforming draw, Though hers the lustres of the Sibyl maid. ELTOW. ELEGY V. TO CYNTHIA.' THEN wide through Rome and is it, Cynthia, true ? Thy name is blown ; thy wanton actions fly : Look'd I for this ! this, traitress ! thou shalt rue ; The northern wind shall teach me constancy. One, whom thy sex's treachery less inspires, I'll seek ; who from my song will covet fame j Whose shamelessness will not insult my fires j Whose nimble tongue shall scandalize thy name. Oh long beloved ! too late thy tears will flow ! Now fresh my fury ; let me now depart ; When anger cools, alas ! too well I know, Love will resume its influence o'er my heart. 168 PROPERTIUS. Not so the north-wind turns Carpathian tides. Nor blackening clouds the veering south obey : As, at a word, the lover soothed subsides ; Loose, then, th' unequal yoke, while yet we may And thou, not wholly from compunction free, Wilt somewhat grieve ; but only on the night When thy late lover first is missed by thee ; All ills of love become by patience light. But oh ! by Juno's dear, protecting name, Harm not thyself, nor give these passions rein ; Not the horn'd bull, alone, will wrongs inflame ; E'en the mild sheep, if injured, turns again. I will not from thy perjured bosom tear The vest away ; thy bolted chamber storm ; Pluck with infuriate grasp thy braided hair, Nor with hard nails thy tender cheeks deform : Thus let the rustic churl his anger show ; To such these base revenges I resign ; For whom no garlands of the Muses grow, Round whose rude brow no ivy tendrils twine :. But I will write what thou wouldst blot in vain ; Of Cynthia Cynthia, beautiful and frail ; Fame's busy murmurs thou may'st still disdain, Yet this my verse shall dye thy cheek with pale ! ELTON. ELEGY VI. TO CYNTHIA. NOT such Corinthian Lais' sighing train, Before whose gates all prostrate Greece had lain ; Not such a crowd Menander's Thais drew, Whose charms th' Athenian people joy'd to woo; Nor she, who could the Theban towers rebuild, When hosts of suitors had their coffers fill'd. Nay by false kinsmen are thy lips carest ; By sanction'd, simulated kisses prest. The forms of youths and beauteous gods, that rise Around thy pictured roof, offend mine eyes PROPERT1US. 169 The tender lisping babe, by thee carest Within its cradle, wounds my jealous breast. I fear thy mother's kiss, thy sister dread ; Suspect the virgin partner of her bed : All wakes my spleen, a very coward grown : Forgive the fears that spring from thee alone. Wretched in jealous terror, to my eyes Beneath each female robe a lover lies. Blest was Admetus' spouse, and blest the dame Who shared Ulysses' couch in modest fame : Oh ! ever happy shall the fair-one prove, Who by her husband's threshold bounds her love. Ah ! why should Modesty's pure fane ascend ? Why at her shrine the blushing maiden bend ? If, when she weds, her passions spurn control ; If the bold matron sates her wishful soul ? The hand, that first in naked colours traced Groups of loose loves, on walls that once were chaste : And full exposed, broad burning on the light, The shapes and postures that abash the sight ; Made artless minds in crime's refinements wise, And flash'd enlightening vice on virgin eyes. Woe to the wretch ! who thus insidious wove Mute rapture's veil o'er wrath and tears of love ! Not thus the roofs were deck'd in olden time, Nor the stain'd walls were painted with a crime : Then, for some cause, the desert fanes of Rome Wave with rank grass, while spiders veil the dome. What guards, O Cynthia ! shall thy path confine ? What threshold bound that wilful foot of thine ? Weak is constraint, if women loth obey, And she is safe, who, blushing, fears to stray. ELTON ELEGY IX. ON A RIVAL. TWICE ten long years Penelope was woo'd, Yet chaste remain'd, by countless lovers sued : With fictious woof her wedlock could delay, And rent by night the threads she wove by day 170 PKOPERTIQS. Hopeless Ulysses to behold again, Yet, tarrying, saw her youthful beauties wane. Briseis' arms the dead Achilles press'd, With frantic hand she smote her snowy breast, Mourning her bleeding lord ; and, though a slave, Wash'd his stain'd corse in Simois' shallower wave : Soil'd her fair locks, and in her slender hold CulFd from the pile those bones of giant mould. No sire, no blue-hair'd mother of the sea, Nor widow'd Deidamia mourn'd for thee. Then her true sons did Grecia's glory wield, When modest love could bless the tented field. Thou not a single night alone canst stay: No shameless woman ! not a single day. Now thy gay laugh 'midst circling goblets flic a ; Myself, perchance, thy raillery's sacrifice. E'en him thou seek'st, who late forsook thy charms : Then, may the gods consign him to thy arms ! But, when in tears we stood around thy bed ; When Styx had nigh o'erwhelm'd thy sinking head ; When my fond vows were silent breathed for thee, Where then, perfidious ! where and what was he ? Wouldst thou for me thus fondly breathe the prayer, Did I to farthest Ind the standard bear ; Or in mid-ocean were my galley placed, A lonely speck amidst the watery waste ? Yes words and smooth deceits are thine at will : This task is easy to a woman still. Not Afric's sands so fluctuate to the blast, Or quivering leaves on wintry gales are cast ; As passion's gust bids woman's promise fly, Be rage the cause, or be it levity. Since 'tis thy pleasure, I no more contend : Ye cruel loves ! yet keener arrows bend ; Right-aiming at my heart, dissolve my life ; My blood the pc.lm of this your glorious strife. And must thou thus, Propertius ! in the bloom Of opening youth descend into the tomb ? Must thou then die? yes, die that she may view Thy corse with smiles } thy fleeting ghost pursue PROPF.RTIUS. 171 With her tormenting scorn ; disturb thee dead 5 Leap on thy pyre, and on thy ashes tread. What ? did not Haemon on his bloody glaive Fall, by Antigone's untimely grave ; And mix his ashes in the maiden's urn, Nor would, without her, to his Thebes return ? Thou shalt not 'scape ; yes, thou my death shalt feel : Our mingled blood shall trickle from the steel. Yes though thy death to ages brand my name, That death shall reach thee, and I brave the shame. Witness the stars ! the dews of morning's hour ! The stealthy door, which open'd to thy bower : That nought in life more precious was to me, And still I love thee : yes, in spite of thee ! No other nymph shall on my couch recline ; Alone and loveless, since no longer thine. Ah ! if my life some virtuous years have known, May he thy arms enfold be turn'd to stone ! Not with more horrid zest and thirst of blood, Thebes' princes fought, while near their mother stood, Than I, if Cynthia's presence fired the strife, Would yield my own to snatch my rival's life. ELTON. BOOK III. ELEGY II. TO CYNTHIA. BE praised by others, or unknown remain : Who sings thy praise will sow a barren plain. The funeral couch, that last, that gloomy day, Shall bear those offerings, with thyself, away. The traveller o'er thy slighted bones shall tread, With heedless foot, unconscious of the dead ; Nor, lingering at thy nameless grave, declare, " This heap of dust was an accomplished fair." ELTON. 172 PROPERTITTS. ELEGY III. EFFIGY OF LOVE. HAD he not hands of rare device, whoe'er First painted Love in figure of a boy ? He saw what thoughtless beings lovers were, Who blessings lose, whilst lightest cares employ. Nor added he those airy wings in vain, And bade through human hearts the godhead fly ; For we are tost upon a wavering main ; Our gale, inconstant, veers around the sky. Nor, without cause, he grasps those barbed darts, The Cretan quiver o'er his shoulder cast ; Ere we suspect a foe, he strikes our hearts ; And those inflicted wounds for ever last. In me are fix'd those arrows, in my breast ; But sure his wings are shorn, the boy remains ; For never takes he flight, nor knows he rest ; Still, still I feel him warring through my veins. In these scorch'd vitals dost thou joy to dwell ? Oh shame ! to others let thy arrows flee ; Let veins untouch'd with all thy venom swell ; Not me thou torturest, but the shade of me. Destroy me who shall then describe the fair ? This my light Muse to thee high glory brings : When the nymph's tapering fingers, flowing hair, And eyes of jet, and gliding feet she sings. ELTOK PART OF ELEGY IV. ON HIS POETRY. FEWER the Persic darts in Susa's bands Than in my breast those arrows sheath'd by Love : He not to scorn the tender Muse commands, And bids my dwelling be th' Ascrsean grove. Not that Pierian oaks may seek my lyre, Nor savage beasts from vales Ismarian throng ; But that my Cynthia may the strain admire, And I than Linus rise more famed in song. PROPEP.T1US 173 Not an engaging form so charms mine eye ; Not so the fair one's noble lineage moves ; As on th' accomplish'd nymph's soft breast to lie, And read what she with chasten'd ear approves. Be this my lot, and henceforth I despise The mingled babblings of the vulgar throng : What are to nte e'en Jove's dread enmities, If she appeased relent, and love my song ? ELTOK. PART OF ELEGY IV. TO CYNTHIA. THEN, soon as night o'ershades my dying eyes, Hear my last charge : let no procession trail Its lengthen'd pomp, to grace my obsequies, No trump with empty moan my fate bewail. Let not the ivory stand my bier sustain, Nor on embroider'd vests my corse recline ; Nor odour-breathing censers crowd the train : The poor man's mean solemnities be mine. Enough of state enough, if of my verse Three slender rolls be borne with pious care : No greater gift, attendant on my hearse, Can soothe the breast of hell's imperial fair. But thou, slow-following, beat thy naked breast, Nor weary faint with calling on the dead : Be thy last kisses to my cold lips prest, While alabaster vases unguents shed. When flames the pyre, and I am embers made, My relics to an earthen shell convey : Then plant a laurel, which the tomb may shade, Where my quench'd ashes rest, and grave the lay ; " What here a heap of shapeless ashes lies, Was once the faithful slave of Love alone:" Then shall my sepulchre renown'd arise As the betroth'd Achilles' blood-stain'd stone. PROPERTIUS. And thou, whene'er thou yieldest thus to fate. Oh dear one ! seek the memorable way Already trod ; the mindful stones await Thy second coming, and for thee they stay. Meantime, whilst life endures, oh, warn'd beware Lest thou the buried lover shouldst despise : Some conscious spark e'en mould'ring ashes share: The senseless clay is touch'd by injuries. Ah ! would some kinder Fate, while yet I lay In cradled sleep, had bid me breathe my last ! What boots the breath of our precarious day ! Nestor is dead, his three long ages past. On Ilium's rampart had the Phrygian spear Abridged his age, and sent a swifter doom : He ne'er had seen his son's untimely bier, Nor cried, " death ! why art thou slow to come ?" Thou thy lost friend shalt many a time deplore ; And love may ever last for those who die : Witness Adonis, when the ruthless boar Smote in th' Idalian brake his snowy thigh : 'Tis said, that Venus wept her lover lost, Trod the dank soil, and spread her streaming hair: Thou too in vain wouldst call upon my ghost : These moulder'd bones are dumb to thy despair. ELTON ELEGY VII. ON VENAL INFIDELITY. THE Praetor from Illyria comes again ; Thy spoil and prey ; my torment and my bane : Could not Ceraunian rocks his bark have wreck'd? What gifts, O Neptune ! had thy altars deck'd ! Now is thy table fill'd ; thy midnight door Left soft ajar; but ah ! for me no more. Yes now, if wise, the inviting harvest reap ; Fleece with no sparing hand the silly sheep : Then, when his gifts run dry, command him sail To new Illyrias with a prosperous gale. PKOPERTIUS. 173 No wreaths, no fasces draw my Cynthia's gaze ; But evermore her lover's purse she weighs. Aid, Venus ! aid my anguish ! quick dispense Th' unnerving plagues of blasted impotence ! Then barter'd gifts can now a mistress move? For gifts, O Jupiter ! she pines in love. For lucid gems she sends me o'er the main, And bids me seek in Tyre the purple grain : Oh that in Rome no lords of wealth we saw ; That e'en the palace-roof were thatch'd with straw ! No venal mistress then would melt to gold : Beneath one roof the bride would then grow old. Not that seven nights, while I apart recline, Thy snowy arms round that vile reptile twine : Not, bear me witness, am I wroth with thee: I curse the fair's proverbial levity. A stranger tracks the traces of my kiss, And, sudden blest, usurps my throne of bliss. Ah; Eriphyle's bitter gifts survey! On Jason's bride see fiery torments prey! Can then no wrongs forbid my tears to flow, Nor I the vice forsake, that feel the woe? Whole days have fled ; nor longer Mars's field, The theatre, the Muse, delight can yield: Shame ! where is now thy blush ? but ah ! I fear That a disgraceful passion cannot hear. Look on the chief, who late with treason's host Raised empty uproar on the Actian coast : Love ignominious turn'd his flying prores, And drove him to the world's remotest shores : Augustus' brow a double glory wreaths: The hand that conquer'd now the falchion sheaths. Oh! may those robes, those emeralds which he gave, Be snatch'd by storms through air or o'er the wave: Those chrysolites, that gleam with yellow liftln, Be turn'd to earth and water in thy sight ! Not always Jove when perjur'd lovers swear Complacent laughs, nor deaf rejects the prayer. Heard'st thou yon roll of thunder, muttering deep? Saw'st thou from ether's vault the lightnings leap? f?6 PROPERTIED. No Pleiads no Orion's clouds are here ; Nor casual falls the fiery atmosphere. On nymphs forsworn wrath lightens from above, For e'en the god has wept, bet ray 'd in love. Is Sidon's crimson garment still thy care ? But tremble, false one ! at the darken'd air ! El TOK, ELEGY X. TO CYNTHIA, WHEN IN THE COUNTRY. THOUGH, with unwilling eyes, from Rome I see Thy mourn'd departure, my regretted love ! Yet I rejoice that, e'en remote from me, Thy feet the solitary woodlands rove. In the chaste fields no soft seducer sighs With blandishments, that force thee to thy shame ; No wanton brawls before thy windows rise ; Nor scared thy sleep with those that call thy name. Thou art in solitude and all around Lone hills, and herds, and humble cots appear; No theatres can here thy virtue wound, No fanes, the ^ause of sin, corrupt thee here. Thou shalt behold the steers the furrows turn ; The curv'd knife, dexterous, prune the foliaged vine ; Thy grains of incense in rude chapel burn, And see the goat fall at a rustic shrine ; Or, with bare leg, the rural dance essay, But safe from each strange, lover's prying sight: And I will seek the chase : alternate pay To Venus vows, and join Diana's rite. Cliide the bold hound ; in woodland covert lie, And hang the antler'd spoil on pine-tree bougbj j But no huge lion in his lair defy, Nor savage boar, with nimble onset, rouse. PKOl'ERTIUS. 177 My prowess be to seize the timid hare. Or from my reedy quiver pierce the bird ; Nigh where Clitumnus winds his waters fair Through arching trees, and laves the snow-white herd. Whate'er thy sports, remember, sweetest soul ! A few short days will bring me to thy side; For not the lonely woods, the rills that roll Down mossy crags in smooth, meandering tide, Can so divert the jealousy of fear, But that I name thee by some fancied name, While earnest in thy praise ; lest they, that hear, Should seek thee absent, and seduce to shame. ELTON. ELEGY XV. DEFENCE OF INCONSTANCY. " FRAMEST thou excuse, who art a tale to all ? Whose Cynthia long is read at every stall ?" These words might damp a deaf man's brow, and move A candid blush for mean and nameless love. But did my Cynthia breathe a melting sigh, I were not called the head of levity : Nor broad town-scandal should traduce my fame : Then would I speak, though branded thus by nan.e. Wonder not thou that meaner nymphs invite : They less defame me : are the causes light ? She'll now a fan of peacock's plumes demand; And now a crystal ball to cool her hand : Tease me to death for ivory dice, and pray For glittering baubles of the sacred way. Ah ! let me die if I regard the cost : A jilting fair one's mockery stings me most. Was this the favour to transport my heart ? Thou feel'st no blush, thus charming as thou art : Scarce two short nights in tender joys are sped, And I am call'd intruder on thy bed. Yet wouldst thou praise my person ; read my lay: Has this thy love then flown so swift away ? The race of genius may my rival run : But let him learn from me to love but one. What ! he forsooth will Lerna's snake enfold ; Snatch from th' Hesperian dragon fruits of gold ; 178 PKOPEUTIUS. Drain poisonous juice ; or shipwreck'd gulp the sea; And from no miseries shrink, for sake of thee ? Ah ! would, my life ! these tasks were proved in me ! Then should we find this gallant, now so proud, Skulk his mean head among the coward crowd. Let the vain braggart vaunt his puff'd success ; One short year shall divorce your tenderness. No Sibyl's years, Herculean toils, avail, Nor that last gloomy day to make my fondness fail. Yes thou shalt cull my bones, which tears bedew : " Propertius ! these were thine : ah tried and true ! Ah me ! most true ! though not through noble veins Flow'd thy rich blood, nor ample thy domains," Yes I will all endure : all wrongs are slight : A beauteous woman makes the burden light. Many for thee, I well believe, have sigh'd ; But few of men in constancy are tried. Brief time for Ariadne Theseus burn'd : Demophoon from his Phillis ingrate turn'd : In Jason's bark the sea Medea braved, Yet, lone abandon'd, cursed the man she saved : Hard too the woman's heart, whose feign'd desire For many lovers fans the ready fire. Not to the suitors, vain of noble race, Not to the wealthy, yield thy bribed embrace : Of these scarce one would shed a tear for thee, Or near thy urn be found, as I shall be. fet rather thou for me, grant, heaven ! the p -avpv, Jnaite on thy naked breast, and strew thy streaming hair. ELEGY XVII. ON HIS JEALOUSY OF A RIVAL. OH lovely torment ! for my anguish born, Since oft excluded from thy door in scorn : Come to these arms ; my verse renown can give ; Here thou the fairest of thy sex shalt live : Let not my boast Catullus' ear offend ; Let gentle Calvus too his pardon lend. The veteran, gray with service, quits the field ; Their necks no more the age-worn oxen yield ; PROPERTIUS. 179 On the Waste sands their mouldering barks remain, And the cleft shield hangs idle in the fane. Were it not better crouch, a tyrant's slave, And in thy brazen bulls, Perillus ! rave : At Gorgon's visage stiffen into stone, Or under Caucasus' keen vultures groan. Still I persist : lo ! rust can steel decay, And gentle droppings wear the flint away. Love to the marble threshold clings, nor feels The wearing stone ; though threaten'd, patient kneels ; Though wrong'd, pleads guilt ; implores the foot that spurns ; And, loth returning, yet, when call'd, returns. And thou, full-flush'd with bliss ! be taught from me, Fond rival ! woman's light inconstancy. In the mid-storm who pays his thanks to heaven, When oft, in port, the floating wreck is driven? Who claims the prize, ere seven times round the goal, With, grazing wheel, the kindling chariot roll ? In love's fair sky fallacious breezes blow, And heavy comes the storm, when threatening slow. E'en though she love thee, be thy joy supprest, And lock the secret in thy silent breast. The boastings of successful passion prove, I know not how, injurious oft in love. Go once, for many times that she invites ; Short is tke bliss, which prying envy blights. Oh, if the ages past could votaries find, And if our nymphs were of that ancient kind, What now thou art, should I, unrivall'd, be ; The time's corruption hath supplanted me. Not from this age my nature takes its hue ; Each has his path, and I my own pursue. But thou, whose courtship thus promiscuous roves, How must thine eyes be tortured by thy loves ! Thou seest the skin with lunar clearness white, Thou seest the brown of tint, and both delight ; Charm'd by the shape through Grecian robes display'd, By vestures ravish'd of the Roman maid. Be russet garments, or the purple, worn, By both alike thy tender breast is torn, v 2 180 PROPERTlUS. One only nymph might well employ thy dreama , One nymph variety of torment seems. ELTON. ELEGY XIX. THE LOVER. MORTALS ! ye fain would search, with curious eyes, Death's hovering hour, and ever-varied way ; Scan with Pho3nician art the starlight skies, And, kind or adverse, read each planet's ray. Britons our fleets, and Parths our legions, fear, Yet still blind perils haunt the earth and main ; Anxious ye rue the tumult thickening near, When Mars joins havoc on the dubious plain. Ye dread, lest flames your crashing roofs devour, Or livid poison lurk within your bowl : The lover only knows his fated hour ; Nor blasts, nor arms, give terror to his soul. Though now on reedy Styx the oar he ply, Ev'n now, the murky sail of Hell survey ; Let her he loves recall him with a sigh, He shall retrace that unpermitted way. ELTON. ELEGY XXI. TO CYNTHIA. As yesternight, my life ! I roam'd the street, Flush'd with the grape, no slave to guide my feet, A tiny multitude of boys drew near ; I could not count them for my wildering fear. Some torches shook ; some brandish'd darts in air ; Some rattled chains ; their rosy limbs were bare. Till one, more petulant in mischief, cried, " Seize, bind him ! he is known to us, and tried : 'Tis he, mark'd out by an oifended fair." Instant my neck was noosed in knotted snare : One shouts to drag me forth ; another cries, " Wretch ! if he doubts that we are gods, he dies. For thee, all undeserving as thou art, She wakeful counts the hours, that slow depart : And still expectant sighs ; while some strange fair Attracts thee to her door : we know not where. PROPERTICS. 181 Fond fool ! when, disentangled from her head Her nightly turban's purple fillet's spread, As, drooping with moist sleep, she lifts her eyes, Such odours from her locks dishevelled rise, As ne'er Arabia's breathing balms diffuse ; For Love's own hands extract those essenced dews. But spare him, brothers ! the repentant youth Gives his free promise now of amorous truth : And see, we reach th' appointed house," he said : Then my stript mantle o'er my shoulders spread, And led me in : " Go now : no longer roam : But learn from this to pass thy nights at home." Ei.tox BOOK IV. ELEGY I. T'TIEDICTION OF POETIC IMMORTALITY. SPRITE of Callimachus ! and thou blest shade, Coan Philetas ! I your grove would tread : Me, Love's vow'd priest, have Grecia's choirs obey'd, From their pure fount in Latian's orgies led. Say, Spirits ! what inspiring grotto gave Alike to both that subtly tender strain ? Which foot auspicious enter'd first the cave, Or from what spring ye drank your flowing vein ? Who lists, may din with arms Apollo's ear : Smooth let the numbers glide, whose fame on high Lifts me from earth : behold my Muse appear ! And on wreath'd coursers pass in triumph by ! With me the little Loves the car ascend; My chariot-wheels a throng of bards pursues ; Why, with loose reins, in idle strife contend ? Narrow the course which Heaven assigns the Muse. N 3 182 PROPERTIU8. Full many, Rome, shall bid thy annals shine, And Asian Bactra rise thy empire's bound ; Mine are the lays of peace, and flowers are mine Gather'd on Helicon's untrodden ground. Maids of the sacred fount ! with no harsh crown, But with soft garland wreathe your poet's head ! Those honours, which th' invidious crowd disown, While yet I live, shall doubly grace me dead. Whate'er the silent tomb has veil'd in shade Shines more august through venerable fame ; Time has the merits of the dead display'd, And rescued from the dust a glorious name. Who, else, would know, that e'er Troy-towers had bow'd To the pine-steed ? that e'er Achilles strove With grappling rivers ? that round Ida flow'd The stream of Simois, cradling infant Jove ? If Hector's blood dyed thrice the wheel-track'd plain ? Polydamas, Deiphobus, once fell, Or Helenus was number'd with the slain ? Scarce his own soil could of her Paris tell. Shrunk were thy record, Troy ! whose captured wall Felt twice th' JEtse&n god's resistless rage : Nor he, the bard that register'd thy fall, Had left his growing song to every age. Me too shall Rome, among her last, revere ; But that far day shall on my ashes rise ; No stone a worthless sepulchre shall rear, The mean memorial where a poet lies. So may the Lycian god my vows approve ! Now let my verse its wonted sphere regain ; That, touch'd with sympathies of joy and love, The melting nymph may listen to my strain. 'Tis sung that Orpheus, with his Thracian tones,. Stay'd the wild herd, and stay'd the troubled flood ; Moved by Amphion's lute Cythaeron's stones Leap'd into form, and Thebes aspiring stood. PKOPERTID9. .83 Beneath rude ^Etna's crag, O Polypheme ! On the smooth deep did Galatea rein Her horses, dropping with the briny stream, And wind their course to catch thy floating strain. Then, if the god of verse, the god of wine, Look down propitious, and with smiles approve ; What wonder, if the fair's applause be mine, If thronging virgins list the lays of love ? Though no green marble, from Tsenarian mines, Swells in the columns that my roof uphold ; No ceiling's arch with burnish'd ivory shines, And intersecting beams that blaze with gold ; My orchards vie not with Phseacian groves, Through my carved grot no Marcian fountains play ; With me the Muse in breathless dances roves ; Nymphs haunt my dwelling ; readers love my lay. Oh fortunate, fair maid ! whoe'er thou art, That, in my gentle song, shall honour'd be ! This to each charm shall lasting bloom impart ; Each tender verse a monument of thee ! The sumptuous pyramids, that stately rise Among the stars, the Mausolean tomb, Th' Olympic fane, expanded like the skies Not these can scape th' irrevocable doom. The force of rushing rains, or wasting flame, The weight of years may bow their glories down ; But Genius wins an undecaying name, Through ages strong, and deathless in renown. ELTON ELEGY III. THE DREAM OF PROPERTIUS. METHOUGHT I lay by Pegasus' fresh fount, On pleasant Helicon's umbrageous mount: The feats, O Alba ! of thy storied kings Already trembled on my murmuring strings: Vent'rous I stoop'd that mightier stream to sip, Whence father Ennius slaked his thirsty lip ; 181 PROPERTIUS. The Curian and Horatian spears he sung ; Th' JEmilian bark with regal trophies hung ; Fabius' slow conquests ; Cannae's fatal plain ; And heaven by pious offerings turn'd again : Rome's gods that forth the Punic spoiler drove, And the shrill bird that saved the fane of Jove. When, from a laurel by Castalia's wave, Propt on his golden harp before a cave, Apollo saw : he fix'd his glance, and cried, " What wouldst thou, madman ! with so vast a tide ? Who bade thee thus heroic numbers claim ? Not hence, Propertius ! hope the wreath of fame. Rather with slender track thy chariot lead To print the verdure of the velvet mead : While careless on the couch thy page is thrown, Where she, that waits a lover, sighs alone. Why quit the ring that bounds thy lay's renown ? Or weigh the pinnace of thy genius down ? One oar the sea and one the sand should sweep : Be safe, for stormiest rolls the midmost deep." Then with his ivory quill he show'd a seat, And path of springing moss, by foot unbeat : Studding the grot, stones green with lichens clung ; And timbrels from the rock's worn vault were hung : Silenus old with clay-form'd Muses stood ; And piping Pan from his Arcadian wood : My darling doves, light-hovering round their queen, Dipp'd their red beaks in rills from Hippocrene. The sculptured Sisters, ranged on either side, In various tasks their yielding fingers plied : This culls for Bacchic spears the ivy sprays ; That tunes the stringed lyre, and sets the lays : Another's hands the braided garland bind With roses, white and red, alternate twined. One, rising from the group, drew near to me, Her air, methought. bespoke Calliope : " Let snow-plumed swans for ever waft thy car, Nor steeds strong-thundering whirl thee to the war Blow not the dismal trumpet's hoarse alarms, Nor stern beset th' Aonian bowers with arms ; PROPERTIUS. 185 Bid net the Marian banners flout the sky ; From Rome's firm shock the broken Teutons fly ; Or b'irb'rous Rhine along his wailing flood Roll heaps of Suevian slain, and blush with blood. Sing thou the lovers that, with garlands crown'd, Another's doors with amorous siege surround ; Sing of the torches glaring through the night, And riot-ensigns of inebriate flight ; To him the secrets of thy lore impart, Who aims to dupe a rigid keeper's art ; And teach him, by the magic of a lay, Through bars and bolts to lure the nymph away." She said : and on my brow the waters threw, Drawn from the fountain, whence Philetas drew. ELTON. ELEGY V. PRAISE OF A LIFE OF EASE. LOVE is the god of peace : we lovers know But love's hard combats, and a mistress-foe : Not gold's devouring want my soul has curst ; Not from a jewell'd cup I slake my thirst ; I plough not wide Campania's mellow'd soil, Nor for thy brass in ships, O Corinth ! toil. Ah ! hapless clay that erst Prometheus press'd, Moulding a rash and unforeseeing breast : The skill, that knit the frame, o'erlook'd the heart ; An upright reasoning soul escaped his art. Now tost by winds we roam the troubled flood, Link foe to foe, and restless pant for blood. Fool ! not on Acheron thy wealth shall float, All naked drifting in th' infernal boat. The conqueror with the captive skims the tide, And chain'd Jugurtha sits at Marius' side : Robed Cro3sus shares the tatter'd Irus' doom, And owns that death the best, which soon shall come. Me in youth's flower could Helicon entrance, My hands with Muses link'd in mazy dance . Me has it charm'd to bathe my soul in wine, And vernal roses round my temples twine 186 PROPERTIUS. When irksome age hath stolen on love's delight, And strewn ray sable locks with sprinkled white : Then may it please to search in Nature's ways, And learn what god the world's vast fabric sways ; How dawns the rising east and fades again ; How the round moon repairs her crescent wane : How winds the salt sea sweep, and th' eastern blast The billows warps, and clouds their ceaseless waters cast. Whether a day shall come, when headlong hurl'd Shall fall the tottering pillars of the world ; Why drinks the purpling bow the rainy cloud ; Why Pindus' summits reel, in earthquake bow'd ; Why shines the sun's wheel'd orb with umber'd light, His golden coursers pall'd in mourning night ; Why turns Bootes slow his starry wain, Why sparkling throng the Pleiads' cluster'd train ; Why bounded roll the deepening ocean's tides ; Why the full year in parted seasons glides ; If under earth gods judge, and giants rave ; Tisiphone's fierce ringlets snaky wave ; Furies Alcmaeon scourge, and Phineas hungering crave ; Thirst burn in streams, wheels whirl, rocks backward leap, Or hell's dark mouth three-headed Cerberus keep : If Tityos' straiten'd limbs nine acres press ; Or fables mock man's credulous wretchedness Through long tradition's age : nor terror's strife Survive the pyre : be such my close of life. Go ye who list, the Parthian overcome, Bring Crassus' wrested standards back to Rome. ELTON. ELEGY X. THE BIRTH-DAY OF CYNTHIA. I MARVELL'D what the smiling Muses led, While blush'd the rising sun, beside my bed. My fair one's birth-day shone ; and, standing round, Thrice with clapp'd hands they gave the signal sound. May this day cloudless pass, winds breathe no more ; And raging waves roll smoothly to the shore. Let no sad looks on this blest day appear ; Ev'n Niobe suppress ths marble tear : PROPERTIUS. 1 87 The Halcyon's bills lay now their moans aside, Nor on her son devour'd let Progne chide. And, dear one ! thou, in light-wing'd moments born, Rise, pray the heavens for blessings on thy morn. Disperse the dews of sleep with waters fair, With parting fingers sleek thy glossy hair ; The robe, that first allured Propertius' eyes, Assume, nor for thy brow the flower despise. Pray that those powerful beauties ne'er may fade, And still my neck may bow, by Cynthia sway'd. When smoke of purifying incense streams From the wreath'd altar, and its broadening gleams Fill all the gilt saloon with happy light, Arrange the board ; let goblets speed the night. From box of yellow agate sweet dispense The liquid nard moist breathing on the sense : Let the sigh'd flute sob hoarse in midnight dance ; Thy wit in libertine gay sallies glance ; From jocund feast unwelcome sleep retreat, And ringing echo din the neighbouring street. Let the dice rattle and the throw denote Whom that wing'd boy with heaviest pinions smote. When many an hour has flow'd in bumpers by, Let Venus lend her nightly ministry : Let us the yearly solemn love-rites pay, And crown the pleasures of thy natal-day. ELTON. LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFOKI) STREET AND CHAKIXO CBO3S. 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