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GHOSTWRITING ELEGY IN PROPERTIUS 4.7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2016

Jonathan Wallis*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania

Extract

Propertian elegy is not an obstinately male genre. It is engendered as masculine in its discursive mastery over the female object of its erotics and poetics, but engenders itself as effeminate in its association with softness, submissiveness, and impotence, and as feminine especially in its self-critique and its interrogation of Roman gender and sexuality.

M. Wyke, The Roman Mistress (Oxford, 2002), 189

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2016 

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References

1 W.R. Johnson, ‘Final exit: Propertius 4.11’, in D.H. Roberts, F.M. Dunn and D. Fowler (edd.), Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton, 1997), 163–80, at 177.

2 A. La Penna, Properzio (Florence, 1951), 84–5; E. Lefèvre, Propertius Ludibundus (Heidelberg, 1966), 108–19.

3 Lake, A.K., ‘An interpretation of Propertius IV, 7’, CR 51 (1937), 53–5Google Scholar wonders accordingly whether 4.7's report of Cynthia's death might have been simply artistic licence on Propertius’ part, and the poem therefore ‘a satirical comment on the character of a still quite vigorous Cynthia’ (53), and an attempt by the poet ‘to justify his decision to leave her’ (54).

4 M. Hubbard, Propertius (Bristol, 1974), 149–53; Muecke, F., ‘ Nobilis historia? Incongruity in Propertius 4.7’, BICS 21 (1974), 124–32Google Scholar; Yardley, J.C., ‘Cynthia's ghost: Propertius 4.7 again’, BICS 24 (1977), 83–7Google Scholar; Allison, J.W., ‘Virgilian themes in Propertius 4.7 and 8’, CP 75 (1980), 332–8Google Scholar; J. Warden, Fallax Opus: Poet and Reader in the Elegies of Propertius (Toronto, 1980); Knox, P.E., ‘Cynthia's ghosts in Propertius 4.7’, Ordia Prima 3 (2004), 153–69Google Scholar.

5 In particular, Flaschenriem, B., ‘Speaking of women: ‘female voice’ in Propertius’, Helios 25 (1998), 4964 Google Scholar; M. Janan, The Politics of Desire. Propertius IV (Berkeley, 2001), 100–13; M. Wyke, The Roman Mistress (Oxford, 2002), 178–88; Liveley, G., ‘ Cynthia prima fuit, Cynthia finis erit. Time and narrative in Propertius 4’, Helios 37 (2010), 111–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. James, S.L., ‘ Ipsa dixerat: women's words in Roman love elegy’, Phoenix 64 (2011), 314–44Google Scholar offers relevant discussion of female speech in Propertius, but does not discuss 4.7 specifically.

6 Janan (n. 5), 107–9.

7 T.D. Papanghelis, Propertius: A Hellenistic Poet on Love and Death (Cambridge, 1987), 149 is quite right: ‘Being the visual “embodiment” as well as the exponent of the poem's aesthetics, [Cynthia's] figure must be scrupulously scanned.’

8 I use Heyworth's 2007 OCT (= S.J. Heyworth, Sexti Properti Elegos [Oxford, 2007]) throughout, except where noted (see below, n. 34).

9 Papanghelis (n. 7), 151–2.

10 G. Hutchinson, Propertius. Elegies Book IV (Cambridge, 2006), 174. Similarly, the details Cynthia will provide explicitly as reminiscences of the affair at 4.7.15–20 ironically differentiate her recollection from the one the reader recalls from Propertius: see esp. Warden (n. 4), 23–6 and Papanghelis (n. 7), 153–9; Knox (n. 4), 159–60.

11 Warden, J., ‘The dead and the quick: structural correspondences and thematic relationships in Propertius 4.7 and 4.8’, Phoenix 50 (1996), 118–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 127; for viewing 4.7–8 as Homeric sequence, see Hubbard (n. 4), 152–3.

12 Hom. Il. 23.103–6: Hubbard (n. 4), 149–52; Muecke (n. 4), 125–6; Warden (n. 4), 14–16; M. Komp, Absage an Cynthia. Das Liebesthema bein späten Properz (Frankfurt, 1988), 42–7, 64–7; R. Dimundo, Properzio 4,7. Dalla variante di un modello letterario alla costante di una unità tematica (Bari, 1990), 27–43; Knox (n. 4), 155–7.

13 Verg. Aen. 2.270–6. While ancient literary ghosts often retain physical marks connected with their deaths (e.g. the ghost of Dido's murdered husband Sychaeus at Aen. 1.355–6), evidence of injuries received after death is less common: cf. Tib. 1.10.37–8, with Muecke (n. 4), 126; Yardley (n. 4), 84–5.

14 Warden (n. 4), 70–8.

15 Here Cynthia's own narrative in 4.7 offers the realization of what had been Propertius’ fantasy for Cynthia (e.g. 2.28.25–30): Muecke (n. 4), 129–30; also Papanghelis (n. 7), 173–4; Flaschenriem (n. 5), 49–50.

16 In both poems, the poet also introduces himself—half-drunk in 1.3 and half-asleep in 4.7—in a couplet governed by a temporal clause with two imperfect subjunctives (cum traherem … et quaterent, 1.3.9–10; cum penderet … et quererer, 4.7.5–6).

17 As a whole 4.7 inverts notable aspects of all earlier poetry in which Cynthia speaks at length (once in each book: 1.3, 2.29B, 3.6). In addition to the role-reversal noted above, 1.3 ends Propertius’ narration with Cynthia's twelve lines of direct speech, while 4.7 begins with twelve lines voiced by Propertius as introduction to Cynthia's narration. In 2.29B, a suspicious Propertius makes an early morning visit to Cynthia only to find her sleeping alone, while in 4.7 Cynthia calls upon Propertius at night accusing him of infidelity—and it is now Propertius who chastely lies alone in bed. Lastly, 4.7 is linked to 3.6 not only by Cynthia's speaking but also by the first reappearance of the slave Lygdamus—but in 3.6 Lygdamus belongs to Cynthia while he is Propertius’ slave in 4.7 (Warden [n. 4], 35).

18 Janan (n. 5), 100–1.

19 Muecke (n. 4), 126. For an inversion here of the ‘conventional scepticism’ of epigrams, see Yardley (n. 4), 83.

20 Flaschenriem (n. 5), 54. On reading 4.7 against 1.19, see also Warden (n. 4), 28; Dimundo (n. 12), 40–3.

21 Cf. 2.13 (esp. lines 57–8): Propertius asserts that, for lovers, the pain of death lies ultimately in an inability to communicate.

22 See esp. Wyke (n. 5), 197.

23 Janan (n. 5), 107.

24 For the financial dependence women like Cynthia had on men like Propertius, see S.L. James, Learned Girls and Male Persuasion. Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy (Berkeley, 2003), 35–107. For readings of 4.7 that expose the dependence women have on men for the representation (and reputation) in art, see Janan (n. 5), 107–8; also Wyke (n. 5), 185.

25 Cf. the extended exemplum afforded Hypermestra at Hor. Carm. 3.11.33–52. Male interests are conspicuous here: Horace's Hypermestra voices the paternal retribution she expects as a consequence of her actions (45–8), while Horace himself cites Hypermestra in the first place as a ‘noble girl’, who treats wedlock with due respect (33–6)—but in the context of a poem in which he seeks Mercury's assistance in making one Lyde similarly receptive to the poet's own overtures of marriage.

26 In this geographically vague representation of the underworld, Propertius seems to infuse his Elysian fields with Virgil's depiction of female sorrow in the lugentes campi at Aen. 6.442–9: Solmsen, F., ‘Propertius in his literary relations with Tibullus and Vergil’, Philologus 105 (1961), 273–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 284–5; Allison (n. 4), 333–4; Knox (n. 4), 157–8. For Janan (n. 5), 109–11, Cynthia's portrait of an undelimited underworld eschews the (male-authored) categories by which female virtue is judged; cf. Warden (n. 4), 39.

27 Janan (n. 5), 110–11, following Warden (n. 4), 43.

28 Papanghelis (n. 7), 181. Cf. Janan (n. 5), 112–13.

29 Papanghelis (n. 7), 183 thus distinguishes Cynthia's behaviour in the underworld from Virgil's ‘ominously incommunicative’ Dido in Aeneid 6.

30 See esp. T.R. Ramsby, Textual Permanence. Roman Elegists and the Epigraphic Tradition (London, 2007) for analysis of an ‘epigraphic consciousness’ in Augustan poetry, where frequent incorporation of literary epitaphs accords with a desire that poetry be, at least in part, a vehicle for permanent public self-representation. Cf. the qualification of Ramsby's discussion of the ‘monumental durability’ evoked by literary epitaphic writing in L.B.T. Houghton, ‘Epitome and eternity: some epitaphs and votive inscriptions in the Latin love elegists’, in P. Liddel and P. Low (edd.), Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 2013), 349–64 (esp. 357–61).

31 Flaschenriem (n. 5), 60; pages 56–62 are an excellent discussion of the significance of Cynthia's epitaph; also Ramsby (n. 30), 66–70. Cf. Papanghelis (n. 7), 188–9, who sees the text on Cynthia's monument as encapsulating the cheap aspirations of a courtesan whose final speech ‘sizzles with womanish vanity’.

32 Ramsby (n. 30), 69.

33 Cynthia's instruction that Propertius inscribe her poetic epitaph ‘in the middle of a column’ recalls Propertius’ own ‘publication’ motif from the closing stages of the previous book (3.23.23–4), which itself draws upon the final line of Horace's Satires 1 to indicate that the work in question is ready for public consumption: S.J. Heyworth and J.H.W. Morwood, A Commentary on Propertius: Book 3 (Oxford, 2011), 330.

34 Here I follow the text as printed in Hutchinson (n. 10). Heyworth (n. 8) adopts Sandbach's emendation pone for pelle at 79, so having Cynthia request the planting of ivy on her tomb; for argumentation, see Sandbach, F.H., ‘Some problems in Propertius’, CQ 12 (1962), 163–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 273–4. As I argue above, seeking the removal of ivy from her tomb accords with the literary emancipation that Cynthia seeks in the surrounding couplets: see here Warden (n. 11), 121–2 with n. 18; Hutchinson (n. 10), 186.

35 E.g. Prop. 2.5.26, 3.3.35, 4.1.62, with S.J. Heyworth, Cynthia. A Companion to the Text of Propertius (Oxford, 2007), 471.

36 Cf. Flaschenriem (n. 5), 58–9.

37 Flaschenriem (n. 5), 55.

38 Propertius habitually alludes to Cynthia as perfidious: e.g. 1.11.16; 1.15.2; 1.15.34; 2.5.3; 2.9.28; 2.18B19. For the range of elegiac behaviour covered by perfidia, see Bennett, A.W., ‘The elegiac lie: Propertius 1.15’, Phoenix 26 (1972), 2839 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 A literally central claim: 4.7.53 is the forty-first line of Cynthia's 82-line monologue.

40 e.g. 1.12.19–20, 1.15.29–32, 2.7.19, 2.20.34, 2.26.27, 3.6.39–40, 3.15.9–10. Significantly, the much-observed ‘difference’ in 4.7 between the Cynthian and the Propertian versions of elegiac history is largely brought about by rhetorical similarity in the two speakers: each accuses the other of lack of faith.

41 See generally Saylor, C., ‘ Querelae: Propertius’ distinctive technical name for his elegy’, Agon 1 (1967), 142–9Google Scholar, for the use of queror as a technical term for elegiac speech. For Cynthia's use of queri, see Kaufhold, S., ‘Propertius 1.3: Cynthia rescripted’, ICS 22 (1997), 8798 Google Scholar, at 95; Flaschenriem (n. 5), 53; and James (n. 5), 335.

42 Liveley (n. 5), 124.

43 See esp. Papanghelis (n. 7), 22–4.

44 Metaphorical context and other usages discussed at J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore, 1982), 183–4.

45 Flaschenriem (n. 5), 54–5.

46 There is a possible irony available here. In the opening section above I flagged Propertius’ use of triuerat (4.7.10) to describe the way in which the water of Lethe ‘had worn away’ the surface of Cynthia's face. At the time, I linked this with Cynthia's desire for literary emancipation, noting the symbolic erasure of the identity Propertius had written for Cynthia; and the verb itself foreshadows Cynthia's usurpation of the poet's authoritative role with teram just now at 4.7.94. Yet, even as Cynthia strives to assert control of her own identity, Propertius seemingly reminds us of (the reality of) Cynthia's inscribed nature: the striking verb triuerat links Cynthia's features with the poet's writing-tablets, which he described in 3.23 as similarly being ‘worn down’ by the use of his hands—and so the tablets remain recognisably his, even when lacking a seal (has quondam nostris manibus detriuerat usus, | qui non signatas iussit habere fidem, 3.23.3–4).

47 See esp. D.F. Kennedy, The Arts of Love: Five Studies in the Discourse of Roman Love Elegy (Cambridge, 1993), 83–100; and O'Neill, K., ‘Symbolism and sympathetic magic in Propertius 4.5’, CJ 94 (1998), 4980 Google Scholar, at 1, with n. 2 for representative bibliography.

48 Esp. Wyke, M., ‘The elegiac woman at Rome’, PCPhS 33 (1987), 153–78Google Scholar; and ead., Written women: Propertius’ scripta puella ’, JRS 77 (1987), 4761 Google Scholar; ead., Mistress and metaphor in Augustan elegy’, Helios 16 (1989), 2547 Google Scholar.

49 James (n. 5).

50 James (n. 5), 339.

51 Perceptive here is Johnson (n. 1), 180; also Liveley (n. 5), 119, for the way in which Book 4 toys with its readers’ desire to construct an extra-textual chronology of elegiac events.

52 James (n. 5) 341.

53 Heyworth (n. 35), 471.

54 M. Bettini (trans. L. Gibbs), The Portrait of the Lover (Berkeley, 1999), 112–16.

55 Heyworth (n. 35), 471.

56 E.g. Kaufhold (n. 41), 95; James (n. 5), 335.

57 For finding a ‘female subjectivity’ in elegy's male ego, see the remarks at Wyke (n. 5), 168, 180; and more generally Wyke, M., ‘Taking the woman's part: engendering Roman love elegy’, Ramus 23 (1994), 110–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Miller, P.A., ‘Why Propertius is a woman: French feminism and Augustan elegy’, CPh 96 (2001), 127–46Google Scholar.

58 Flaschenriem (n. 5), 53.

59 Cf. tua st imago , ‘he's the image of you’ (Plaut. Men. 1063); tuum filium, imaginem tuam , ‘your son, the image of you’ (Cic. Qfr. 1, 3.3).

60 Miller (n. 57), 135

61 Knox (n. 4); more generally, see McKeown, J.C., ‘Augustan elegy and mime’, PCPhS 205 (1979), 7184 Google Scholar.

62 Muecke (n. 4), 127 (a ‘distinctly forensic flavour’); similarly Warden (n. 4), 37; and Dufallo, B., ‘The Roman elegist's dead lover or the drama of the desiring subject’, Phoenix 59 (2005), 112–20Google Scholar, at 116. For oratorical value in elegy more broadly, see B. Dufallo, The Ghosts of the Past (Columbus, 2007).

63 Wyke (n. 5), 180.

64 W.R. Johnson, A Latin Lover in Ancient Rome. Readings in Propertius and His Genre (Columbus, 2009), 79–84 approaches Cynthia's self-defence in 4.7 with entertaining cynicism.

65 Again, Wyke (n. 5), 180 is instructive; in Book 4 ‘the presentation of old elegiac poses now becomes a matter of putting on costumes, of play-acting’; and Flaschenriem (n. 5), 49: ‘The innovative elegies of Book 4, with their array of female speakers, have their origins in Propertius’ earlier attempts to dramatize a feminine erotic psychology.’

66 Cynthia's opening perfide (4.7.13) not only appropriates Propertius’ language, it also offers an echo of (Catullus’) Ariadne as she curses Theseus twice at the beginning of her speech at Cat. 64.132–3: Muecke (n. 4), 127; Hutchinson (n. 10), 174. Cynthia thus converts Propertius’ own use of perfide into a ‘window allusion’ to Cat. 64, highlighting the feminized nature of elegiac vituperation by reference to a poem in which a male poet has already used female lament as an allegory for the emasculated discourse he presents elsewhere in his erotic verse.