SOURCE: "The Unity of Certain Elegies of Propertius," The American Journal of Philology, Vol. LV, 1934, pp. 62-66.

[In the following essay, Godolphin discusses Propertius's subjective dramatic monologues, suggesting that they have been overlooked by critics.]

Several elegies of Propertius have suffered from harsh treatment at the hands of the editors, who have divided them into A's, B's, and C's¹ often without making sufficient effort to understand the author's technique where he departs from the usual types. The narrative elegy and what may be called the elegy of mood certainly occur most frequently. In the latter a given theme or topic is developed with no change in the underlying circumstances, or at least no external change corresponding to the poet's variation of mood in the course of the elegy. There is, however, a third type in which incidents or emotions are presented dramatically and the elegy is treated as a monologue or carried on by successive scenes as a drama. Though in such cases the treatment is subjective, the poet reveals no more knowledge of the outcome than an actor, and the reader sometimes learns of incidents only by implication. The failure of the editors to take this type into account has led them to reduce all the elegies to the more common types.²

In the dramatic type the important feature is the poet's response to a change of situation which is implicit in the elegy. He writes as though he were participating in each incident as it occurs, not from a fixed point before or after the event. Fortunately there are examples of this technique in other poets where no one has suggested dividing the poem. From these cases it is possible to establish the principle of composition followed by Propertius. The poems describing ritual³ or processions naturally use a form of this technique. Tibullus II, I begins with Tibullus as the priest, instructing the worshippers, offering sacrifice, and praying. He next appears as the magister bibendi eulogizing Messalla. Finally he is the didactic poet, treating first of agriculture, then of love. The conclusion, with the approach of night, shows the passage of time⁴ and change of scene as additional dramatic elements. Tibullus II, 2 opens with sacrifice to the Genius to whom Cornutus is urged to address his prayers (9). At line 10 Tibullus, as priest, informs Cornutus that his Genius has shown that he is favorably disposed. The poet then expresses the prayer for Cornutus and at line 17 (vota cadunt) we learn that the wish is granted.

Catullus 8, furnishes an example free of the complications of ritual. The first 11 lines show the poet in self-communion. At line 12 the scene changes as he turns to Lesbia (in imagination) to inform her of the consequences of his deliberations. In the last line (19) he recalls himself somewhat reluctantly to the determination of line 11. Horace (Odes I, 27) supplies another example of this technique.⁵ In this dramatic monologue the word of the brother of Opuntian Megilla causes the change from merry raillery to mock concern. The crisis occurs in the middle of a line (18), and the reader must guess for himself from Horace's reaction what was said.

These examples are sufficient to indicate the existence of a subjective dramatic type in Roman poetry.⁶ Application of this principle of composition to the analysis of certain elegies of Propertius will, I think, demonstrate their artistic unity. Propertius I, 8 contains 46 lines. The first 26 are devoted to Propertius' fear that Cynthia will desert him and go to Illyria, and to his protestation of undying love for her even though deserted; the last 20 express his joyous affirmation that she is now and always will remain his. Following Lipsius most modern editors⁷ have begun a new elegy at line 27.⁸ If, however, we recognize a dramatic technique, the structure of the elegy is clear. Propertius has chosen to place himself within the limits of the elegy as an actor in a drama, and the reader is kept in suspense until the action reaches its climax. In the first 22 lines the poet addresses Cynthia in the second person, as if she were present, and in preparation for the last 20 lines he modulates to the third person by quoting himself (24-26). Without interpreting too literally we may say that news of Cynthia's faithfulness reaches him, and the song of triumph comes much more naturally without the complication of direct address to Cynthia, the subject of it. The fact that the shift of person is made in the lines regularly attached to the first part is further reason to consider the elegy a unit.

I, 15, a complaint on Cynthia's faithlessness, is occasionally divided at 25.⁹ Richmond's comment,¹⁰unum distichon iam ante uncialem excidisse censeo, in quo verborum Cynthiae et blanditiarum fuerit mentio, is indicative of failure to realize that in Propertius' dramatized treatment such mentio is often implicit and not to be accounted for by assuming a lacuna. This elegy also is a dramatic monologue in which an imagined gesture of expostulation is sufficient to change the poet's line of thought.

In II, 24 the poet seeks to clarify the overtones of his relationship with Cynthia. In response to the question of an unnamed interlocutor, he admits his promiscuity and seeks to explain that however famous his book, Cynthia, is, he has suffered great wrongs from her treatment of him. The thought that she is entirely to blame leads him to imagine her present and he launches into reproaches for her fickleness and then contrasts his own undying love (whatever his actions may seem to indicate). The interlocutor, a protactic character, disappears at line 16, and the remainder of the elegy is entirely addressed to Cynthia.

II, 28 presents a more complex problem. In the Mss. (with the exception of N and Memmianus which begin a new elegy at line 35) it appears as one elegy. With the exception of Harrington¹¹ who prints it as one elegy though he fails to perceive the technique, the editors make two or three elegies. Before we proceed to a detailed analysis a brief summary may be useful:

Juppiter, pity my darling though her blasphemy caused her sickness. At the last, fate is often kinder; witness lo, Ino, Andromeda, and Callisto. In death, my darling, you will be among the famous. Repentance can influence even Juno. Though all the omens are unfavorable, spare her for my sake; we will repay you, Jove. Persephone, spare her longer; you already possess lope, Tyro, Europa, and Pasiphae. Soon erough she will be yours. My darling, you are saved. Pay your vows to Diana, to Isis, and to me.

The reader is kept in suspense as Propertius follows the course of the disease. The presentation is dramatic, enabling the poet to show the earlier stages of the disease with the vividness of present misfortune. Three passages give the framework. The illness is announced (1-4), the crisis is implicit in the prayer (41-46), recovery is indicated (59-62). The shifting modes of address are due to the changes of scene as Propertius imagines himself before the altars of the various gods or at the bedside of his sick mistress. The omens (35-38) are the culmination of the successive signs of increasing peril; affectae puellae (1), extremo die (16), sepulturae tuae (26). Correspondingly there is a descending series after the prayer; maneat clementia (47), … es … magno dimissa periclo (59). The dramatization is subjective, and is presented as a sort of monologue, but the reader is a spectator and is so treated by the poet as in the mime.¹²

If this is the poet's method and the Mss. for the most part contain these elegies in their proper form, the probability of serious dislocation is lessened and one may, without being reactionary urge more conservative treatment of the Ms. tradition and greater respect for it.

Notes

¹ This division has led to the treatment of individual elegies as cycles. I, 7 and I, 9 are separated but there is no such clear case for the division of I, 8.

² S. G. Tremenheere, The Elegies of Propertius (1931), 441, on II, 28 (27), 47 furnishes a clear illustration of this attitude, "Lachmann was certainly right in making a new elegy commence here. The previous poem represents Cynthia at death's door. If she still were, how could Propertius have written the last line of this?"

³ Catullus 61 supplies an example of narrative use of the shifting point of view. See W. B. McDaniel, 2d, Catullus (1931), 108, "This one is, further, not strictly a marriage song, but rather a poetic narration of the events of the wedding ceremony as they are observed by the narrator, who is, of course, in propria persona, Catullus."

⁴ Catullus 63 carefully accounts for the passage of time in the usual narrative manner.

⁵ See L. P. Wilkinson, Horace, Epode IX, Classical Review, XLVII (1933) 2-6, for an excellent treatment of another example.

⁶ The absence of sufficient Alexandrian elegy is fatal to any attempt to give a final answer to the origin of the type, though three epigrams of Meleager show dramatic treatment. In V, 176, Stadtmueller, Anthologia Graeca, I (1894), Love, lost in the beginning of the poem, is found hiding in Zenophila's eyes. V, 177, a "baby" for sale, and V, 181, a message for Dorcas, are both dramatic monologues.

⁷ J. P. Postgate, Select Elegies of Propertius (1895); H. E. Butler, Sexti Properti Opera Omnia (1905); K. P. Harrington, The Roman Elegiac Poets (1914); Max Rothstein, Die Elegien des Sextus Propertius (1920); 0. L. Richmond, Propertius (1928). J. S. Phillimore, Sexti Properti Carmina (1901), prints the elegy as one, though his translation (1906) shows the usual division. M. Ites, De Properti Elegiis inter se conexis (1908), notes the connection but leaves the division into parts. C. Hosius, Sex. Propertii elegiarum Libri IV (1922, 3rd ed. 1932) prints the elegy with a space intervening. He is followed by Tremenheere, op. cit., who remarks, 397, "At this point either a new elegy or a supplement to the preceding lines begins."

⁸erat, AFN, is the better reading and more consistent with my interpretation though erit, DV, can be read.

⁹E. g. Ribbeck, Rothstein.

¹⁰Op. cit., 122, post v. 30 (his numbering).

¹¹Op. cit. 266, 1. 59; "If this elegy was written after Cynthia's recovery, this verse represents the actual condition of things at the time of composition; if it was penned during the progress of the disease, it expresses a more or less well-grounded faith that his prayers are heard."

¹² Theocritus 15 and Herodas 5 are good examples of the objective use of this technique in a literary form which influenced the elegists. See Naim, The Mimes of Herodas (1904), xl-xli.