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Some Problems in Propertius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

F. H. Sandbach
F. H. Sandbach
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

Cynthia will leave Rome for the country: how fortunate that there will be no one there to seduce her—provided there is no visitor from the outside world! Propertius will himself go hunting. If Cynthia has any temptations, let her remember that in a few days he will be with her:

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , December 1962 , pp. 263 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1962

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References

page 263 note 1 Propertitma, p. 101; all further references to Shackleton Bailey are to this book, which must in general be taken as a basis by anyone who entertains a hope of making any further progress in elucidating difficulties.

page 263 note 2 But his parallel, Stat, . Theb. 2. 599,Google Scholar (Briareus) lasso mutata Pyracmone temnens fulmina, is not relevant: the meaning there is that the standard of Pyracmon's workmanship falls off as he tires, so that in the latter stages of the battle Briareus can treat Jupiter's ammunition with contempt.

page 263 note 3 ‘pulcritudinis ac doctrinae tuae fama quae in omnium ore est, ut te satis occultare potuerit, timeo’. Jacob was followed by Enk in his Commentarius, with mi for non in the pentameter.

page 264 note 1 Journal of Philology xvi (1897), 10;Google Scholar more recently the same transposition has been hesitantly suggested by Schuster, with a vain reference to Baehrens, W. A., Philologus N.F. xxvi (1913), 276.Google Scholar

page 264 note 2 Virg, . Aen. 5. 505Google Scholartimuitque exterrita pennis, if correct, is not feeble, because timuit pennis forms a striking phrase.

page 264 note 3 Most recently Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom (Hermes Einzelschriften 16), pp. 277 ff., who gives an account of earlier work.Google Scholar

page 265 note 1 I pass over w. 87–88, which cannot be in their rignt place here and appear to find no place anywhere else; they present an unsolved conundrum. I cannot count as a solution the explanation offered by Lejay, , Journal des Savants, 1915, p. 505:Google Scholar ‘Horos interrupts his speech to imitate Propertms; he apes his tone and his ideas.’

page 265 note 2 The last line, octopedis Cancri terga sinistra time, is a notorious puzzle. No doubt from the standpoint of serious astrology it is nonsense, but Propertius intended it to convey something. It is most improbable that his astrologer concludes with a meaningless phrase prognostications that are otherwise entirely consistent with a picture that the poet often draws of his relations with Cynthia. In some way Cancer represents a danger to Propertius; perhaps it was Cynthia's natal sign. The general interpretation of the last four lines of the poem is supported by 2. 27. 11–12, solus amans nouit quando periturus et a qua / morte, neque hic Boreaeflabra neque arma timet, cf. 3. 7. 72, 16. n–14.

page 266 note 1 Barber in his O.C.T. places a dash after edit and after tuae, the punctuation adopted by Lachmann.

page 266 note 2 Barwick, K., Würzburg. Jahrb. ii (1947), 12,Google Scholar brings him on at line 67. A. Dieterich, , Rh. Mus. lv (1900), 210,Google Scholar claims that every Roman would understand why it is just at line 70 that an astrologer appears: Propertius is on the south-west corner of the Palatine, and with the words has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus descends to the Circus Maximus, a notorious haunt of astrologers (Cic, . Div. 1. 132,Google ScholarHor, . Sat. 1. 6. 113); the steepness of the hill, accelerating the poet's pace, accounts for Horos' opening words quo ruis?Google Scholar

page 266 note 3 Markland further read tenditur. In punctuation he was followed by Hertzberg, Palmer, and Enk.

page 267 note 1 The determination not to accept Horos as a seriously-intended figure leads Paley to say that he made ‘a pretty safe guess’ in prophesying that both Arria's sons would be killed at the wars. Service in the Roman army was not so suicidal as that. The incident of Cinara is not meant to be absurd; see Dieterich, , Rh. Mus. lv (1900), 213,Google Scholar and Reitzenstein, R., Hermes i (1915), 474, both quoted by Bailey.Google Scholar

page 267 note 2 I assume that Propertius did not intend to suppress these poems, whether Book 4 was arranged by himself (as I incline to believe) or after his death.

page 268 note 1 Condita has been thought apposite to poetry because of the phrase condere carmen, but condere fata or fatum is also known (Virg, . Aen. 10. 35,Google Scholar Lucan 7. 131).

page 268 note 2 Reisch, p. 125, says that Otto was not the first to offer this solution; he finds imprudens unsuitable to Otto's interpretation.

page 269 note 1 To punctuate (with Rothstein) quo misimprudens, uage? dicerefata Properti? would be a counsel of despair. But impmdens can govern dicere; see the additional note at the end of this article.

page 269 note 2 Cf. Virg, . Aen. 6. 614–24,Google Scholar introduced by ne quaere doceri.

page 269 note 3 Plaut, . Amph. 327Google Scholarillic homo sibi malam rem arcessit; Sen. ep. 99. 13 non debes causas doloris arcessere, although not quite t has the same sense of unnecessarily going out of one's way to incur trouble. Note that the phrase is precise in the context here proposed, and somewhat far-fetched in that of failing to write enough (or good enough) aetiological poems.

page 270 note 1 aequus sc. mihi. Propertius is to give favourable and willing attention, cf. Ter, . Andr. 24,Google Scholaradeste aequo animo et rem cognoscite. nouis either is ‘modern’ in contrast with the earlier calamities just recounted, or looks forward to the new troubles, still in the future, which (so Propertius is to learn) are to be added to his old ones.

page 270 note 2 Rh. Mus. xxxix (1884), 427,Google ScholarKl. Schr. iii. 36.Google Scholar His own accersis lacrimas quantas! is no improvement. Heinsius, it should be said, was misled by humanist emendations, auersis Musis cantos and arcessis lacrimis Charlies.

page 270 note 3 But he will take to the cithara when he sings of war, 2. 10. 10.

page 271 note 1 pigenda so comes into its own. If Propertius had been asking his own lyre for verses that would have turned out inferior, they would have been pudenda rather than pigenda.

page 271 note 2 I could wish I knew that oracular Apollo ever used a lyre. This poem of Tibullus opens with huc age cum cithara carminibusque ueni, but that may be because Tibullus wishes to write a poem. In Homeric Hymn 182 Apollo comes to rocky Pytho , but did he use it after arriving?

page 272 note 1 Hence Luetjohann thought the couplet interpolated. Some manuscripts have a marginal note Asis, presumably from 125; perhaps such a note gave rise to quasuis (FL).

To import Asis into the text by writing qui Asis, as Butler once proposed, is an improbable solution.

page 273 note 1 A.P. 7. 22Google Scholar (Simias) (cf. comis), 23 (Antipater of Sidon) cf. 30 (also Antipater), 36 (Erycius), 708 (Dioscorides).

page 273 note 2 A.P. 1. 7;Google Scholar incidentally I do not know whether anyone has suggested that the which represents Simonides is not the insignificant inflorescence of the vine, but Spiraea filipendula (see L.S.J., s.v. Ill), a close relative of meadow-sweet.

page 273 note 3 Shackleton Bailey, who keeps pelle, hesitantly proposes nolim … alliget for molli … alligat. A more drastic change, which would surmount a difficulty raised in my final paragraph, would be ambiat.

page 274 note 1 alligare, as T.L.L. shows, is often no more than ligare, a point noted by Plutarch, , Mor. 280Google Scholar a, Cf. also carm. epigr. 1064 cingant suaues ossa sepulta rosae, quoted by Shackleton Bailey.

page 274 note 2 But this can imply a previous inquiry into merit; and it may be doubted whether the author of carm. epigr. 1109. 23, nec Minos mihi iura dabit, sharply distinguished ius dicere and iura dare.

page 275 note 1 Cf. Tränkle, H., Die Sprachkunst des Properz, pp. 95–96.Google Scholar

page 275 note 2 Camps, W. A., C.R. N.S. xi (1961), 105,Google Scholar suggests reading uindex in 19 and iudicet in 20; ‘if there is an Aeacus to punish crimes, I am ready to be judged by him’. (He supposes an unheard-of construction iudicet in mea ossa; as appears above, this is not necessary.) But if the dead are judged by Aeacus, it is gratuitous for Cornelia to ask that he should judge her, stipulating only that he should not take her out of turn. If she had demanded that he judge her without favour, or with unusual strictness, that would have been a different matter.

page 275 note 3 2. 24. 42 may provide a parallel for sed postponed to third place. Richmond proposed (appendix, p. 394), but did not explain, damnatae Noctis set uos. He seems to be the only editor to find the ‘poetic’ plural nectes worth notice (‘audacius pro tenebris quam densissimis’); a possible parallel is to be found in Lucan 7. 452, quoted below.

page 276 note 1 I am grateful to Mr. W. R. Smyth for consulting on my behalf his bibliography of conjectures, and to three friends, Mr. W. A. Camps, Mr. A. Ker, and Mr. A. G. Lee, from discussions with whom this article has greatly profited; they are of course in no way responsible for its conclusions or its errors.