Introduction

Propertius is perhaps the most enigmatic of the great poets from the golden age of Latin literature. There are a number of reasons for this: the corruption of his Latin text as it was transmitted across the millennia; a difficult, abrupt, idiosyncratic style which demands a great deal of the reader; an obsession with mythological minutiae; and the bone-dry sarcasm with which the poet reflects upon his own vicissitudes and the politics of the day. On the one hand, Propertius seems to lack Catullus’ apparent sense of immediacy and unmediated passion, while on the other, he lacks Ovid’s outrageous wit. But for the connoisseur of poetry, the rewards of persevering are immense, and Patrick Worsnip’s vibrant contemporary translation will bring Propertius to a new generation of discerning readers.

Propertius’ distinctive contribution to love poetry is an utterly refined sense of irony. His first three books are devoted to poems narrating the ups and downs of his relationship with his girlfriend, Cynthia; he often blurs the distinction between the girl and the poetry he writes about her. He presents himself as a lover oppressed by an inescapable passion for his beloved, enslaved to her beauty and unable to write about anything else. As he invents countless variations on this basic scenario, his persona never changes. Where Catullus invites us to read his poetry as truly autobiographical and Ovid constantly lifts the mask of the earnest lover in order to wink at his readers, Propertius plays the comedic role of the absurdly obsessive lover but plays it straight. The result is poetry that presents itself as a sincere, authentic narrative of lived experience, but which is in fact a highly arch and self-ironising fiction. Propertian elegy sends up its own earnestness not by explicitly subverting its events and characters but by taking them to absurd extremes, never letting the pretence of authenticity slip.

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