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54-459: Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of Elegies ( Elegiae ). He was a friend of the poets Gallus and Virgil and, with them, had as his patron Maecenas and, through Maecenas, the emperor Augustus . Although Propertius was not as renowned in his own time as other Latin elegists, he is today regarded by scholars as a major poet. Very little information is known about Propertius outside of his own writing. His praenomen "Sextus"

108-459: A I.8a (comprising the first 26 lines) and I.8b (lines 27–46). More complicated organizational problems are presented by poems like II.26, a confusing piece in which Propertius first (1) dreams of Cynthia being shipwrecked, and then (2) praises Cynthia's faithfulness. Following this, he (3) declares that she plans to sail and he will come along, (4) shifts to the couple together on the shore, and then (5) quickly has them back on board ship, ready to face

162-412: A conflation of two books (the second and third of an original five), with some passages lost, parts of poems and whole poems combined, and possible shuffling of fragments. This case is well supported by the texts themselves and fits testimonial evidence about Propertius's original publication of his work: first the "Monobiblos" (our "Book I"), then a collection of three books (our "Book II" and Book III --

216-561: A lament for the dead. However, according to The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy , "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead". The Greek term ἐλεγείᾱ ( elegeíā ; from ἔλεγος , élegos , ‘lament’) originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering

270-495: A lover she clearly dominates the life of the poet's voice at least through the publication of the third book: cuncta tuus sepelivit amor, nec femina post te ulla dedit collo dulcia vincla meo. Thy love has buried all others, nor has any woman after thee put sweet fetters upon my neck. It is difficult to precisely date many of Propertius' poems, but they chronicle the kind of declarations, passions, jealousies, quarrels, and lamentations that were commonplace subjects among

324-405: A poem of mourning include Catullus 's Carmen 101 , on his dead brother, and elegies by Propertius on his dead mistress Cynthia and a matriarch of the prominent Cornelian family . Ovid wrote elegies bemoaning his exile , which he likened to a death. In English literature, the more modern and restricted meaning, of a lament for a departed beloved or tragic event, has been current only since

378-400: A public career, indicating his family still had some wealth, while the abundance of obscure mythology present in his poetry indicates he received a good education. Frequent mention of friends like Tullus, the nephew of Lucius Volcatius Tullus , consul in 33 BC, plus the fact that he lived on Rome's Esquiline Hill indicate he moved among the children of the rich and politically connected during

432-429: A rather unexpected way. Within this frame story are found many digressions , the longest among them being the well-known tale of Cupid and Psyche . This story is a rare instance of a fairy tale preserved in an ancient literary text. The Metamorphoses ends with the (once again human) hero, Lucius, eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis ; he abstains from forbidden foods, bathes, and purifies himself. He

486-468: A wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included epitaphs , sad and mournful songs, and commemorative verses. The Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satirical subject matter. Other than epitaphs, examples of ancient elegy as

540-524: A woman named Hostia , and Propertius suggests she is a descendant of the Roman poet Hostius , modern scholarship indicates that the creation of 'Cynthia' is part of a literary convention in Roman love elegy; scripta puella , a fictionalised 'written girl'. Propertius frequently compliments her as docta puella 'learned girl', and characterises her as a female writer of verse, such as Sulpicia . This literary affair veers wildly between emotional extremes, and as

594-401: A year later, one that includes poems addressed directly to his patron and (as expected) praises for Augustus. The 19th century classics scholar Karl Lachmann argued, based on the unusually large number of poems in this book and Propertius' mention of tres libelli , that the single Book II actually comprises two separate books of poetry conflated in the manuscript tradition, an idea supported by

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648-401: A younger brother, Sicinius Pudens, a mere boy, and their paternal uncle, Sicinius Aemilianus, to join him in impeaching Apuleius upon the charge that he had gained the affections of Pudentilla by charms and magic spells. The case was heard at Sabratha , near Tripoli, c. 158 AD, before Claudius Maximus , proconsul of Africa . The accusation itself seems to have been ridiculous, and

702-432: Is a free translation of Propertius' Elegy IV 7. Elena Shvarts wrote a cycle of poems as if they were the works of Propertius' love, Cynthia. She explains Cynthia's 'poems have not survived, nevertheless I have tried to translate them into Russian'. In the 20th century Ezra Pound 's poem "Homage to Sextus Propertius" cast Propertius as something of a satirist and political dissident, and his translation/interpretation of

756-608: Is a result of manuscript corruptions. Another possibility is that Propertius was deliberately presenting disjointed images in violation of principles such as the Classical Unities , a theory which argues for different unifying structures in Propertius' elegies. This interpretation also implies that Propertius' style represented a mild reaction against the orthodoxy of classical literary theory. However, although these theories may have some bearing on issues of continuity in

810-606: Is introduced to the Navigium Isidis . Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him, and further secrets are revealed before he goes through the process of initiation, which involves a trial by the elements on a journey to the underworld. Lucius is then asked to seek initiation into the cult of Osiris in Rome, and eventually is initiated into the pastophoroi  – a group of priests that serves Isis and Osiris. Apologia ( Apulei Platonici pro Se de Magia )

864-465: Is mentioned by Aelius Donatus , a few manuscripts list him as "Sextus Propertius", but the rest of his name is unknown. From numerous references in his poetry it is clear he was born and raised in Umbria, of a well-to-do family at or near Asisium ( Assisi ). His birthplace is generally regarded as modern Assisi , where tourists can view the excavated remains of a house thought to have belonged at least to

918-428: Is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It is an imaginative, irreverent, and amusing work that relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, who introduces himself as related to the famous philosophers Plutarch and Sextus of Chaeronea . Lucius experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into an ass . In this guise, he hears and sees many unusual things, until escaping from his predicament in

972-1240: Is the version of the defence presented in Sabratha , in 158–159, before the proconsul Claudius Maximus , by Apuleius accused of the crime of magic. Between the traditional exordium and peroratio, the argumentation is divided into three sections: The main interest of the Apologia is historical, as it offers substantial information about its author, magic and life in Africa in the second century. His other works are: parit enim conversatio contemptum, raritas conciliat admirationem (familiarity breeds contempt, rarity brings admiration) Apuleius wrote many other works which have not survived. He wrote works of poetry and fiction , as well as technical treatises on politics , dendrology , agriculture , medicine , natural history , astronomy , music , and arithmetic , and he translated Plato's Phaedo . Extant works wrongly attributed to Apuleius include: The Apuleian Sphere described in Petosiris to Nechepso , also known as " Columcille's Circle" or "Petosiris' Circle",

1026-597: The Elegy Op. 58 of Edward Elgar , the Elegy for Strings of Benjamin Britten , and the first movement, "Elegy", of Pēteris Vasks 's String Quartet No. 4. Though not specifically designated an elegy, Samuel Barber 's Adagio for Strings has an elegiac character. Apuleius Apuleius ( / ˌ æ p j ʊ ˈ l iː ə s / APP -yuu- LEE -əs ; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis ; c. 124 – after 170 )

1080-614: The Death of His Father), written between 1460 and 1470 by Jorge Manrique . "Elegy" (French: élégie ) may denote a type of musical work, usually of a sad or somber nature. A well-known example is the Élégie, Op. 10, by Jules Massenet . This was originally written for piano, as a student work; then he set it as a song; and finally it appeared as the "Invocation", for cello and orchestra, a section of his incidental music to Leconte de Lisle 's Les Érinnyes . Other examples include Gabriel Fauré 's Elegy in C minor (op. 24) for cello and piano,

1134-601: The English writer Ben Jonson , though the authorship of these is disputed. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 's 1795 collection of "Elegies" also shows some familiarity with Propertius' poetry. Propertius is the lyrical protagonist of Joseph Brodsky 's poem "Anno Domini" (1968), originally written in Russian. His relationship with Cynthia is also addressed in Robert Lowell 's poem, "The Ghost. After Sextus Propertius", which

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1188-509: The Latin elegists. The last two poems in Book III seem to indicate a final break with the character of Cynthia ( versibus insignem te pudet esse meis - "It is a shame that my verses have made you famous"). In this last book Cynthia is the subject of only two poems, best regarded as a postscript. The bi-polar complexity of the relationship is amply demonstrated in a poignant, if amusing, poem from

1242-543: The Middle Ages. In the 12th century, he and Cynthia were summoned to a Love Assize but he was truly rediscovered during the Italian Renaissance along with the other elegists. Petrarch 's love sonnets certainly show the influence of his writing, and Aeneas Silvius (the future Pope Pius II) titled a collection of his youthful elegies "Cinthia". There are also a set of "Propertian Elegies" attributed to

1296-470: The Roman heir to Callimachus. This judgement also seems to be upheld by Quintilian , who ranks the elegies of Tibullus higher and, while accepting that others preferred Propertius, is himself somewhat dismissive of the poet. However, Propertius' popularity is attested by the presence of his verses in the graffiti preserved at Pompeii ; while Ovid , for example, drew on him repeatedly for poetic themes, more than on Tibullus. Propertius fell into obscurity in

1350-575: The adventures of its protagonist, Lucius, who experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into a donkey . Lucius goes through various adventures before he is turned back into a human being by the goddess Isis . Apuleius was born in Madauros, a colonia in Numidia on the North African coast bordering Gaetulia , and he described himself as " half-Numidian half-Gaetulian ." Madaurus

1404-548: The attentions (and fortune) of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha , near Oea (modern Tripoli , Libya). This is known as the Apologia . His most famous work is his bawdy picaresque novel the Metamorphoses , otherwise known as The Golden Ass . It is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It relates

1458-523: The charge of exhibiting gladiatorial shows and wild beast events in the province, and statues were erected in his honour by the senate of Carthage and of other senates. The date, place and circumstances of Apuleius' death are not known. There is no record of his activities after 170, a fact which has led some people to believe that he must have died about then (say in 171), although other scholars feel that he may still have been alive in 180 or even 190. The Golden Ass ( Asinus Aureus ) or Metamorphoses

1512-519: The corrupted state of the text, have made his elegies a challenge to edit; among the more famous names who have offered criticism of and emendations to the text have been the classicist John Percival Postgate and the English classicist and poet A. E. Housman . The text contains many syntactic, organizational and logical problems as it has survived. Some of these are no doubt exacerbated by Propertius' bold and occasionally unconventional use of Latin. Others have led scholars to alter and sometimes rearrange

1566-414: The early part of the 20s BC. Propertius published a first book of love elegies around 30 BC, with the character 'Cynthia' as the main theme; the book's complete devotion gave it the natural title Cynthia Monobiblos . The Monobiblos must have attracted the attention of Maecenas , a patron of the arts who took Propertius into his circle of court poets. A second, larger book of elegies was published perhaps

1620-476: The elegies presented them as ancient examples of Pound's own Imagist theory of art. Pound identified in Propertius an example of what he called (in "How to Read") 'logopoeia', "the dance of the intellect among words." Gilbert Highet , in Poets in a Landscape , attributed this to Propertius' use of mythic allusions and circumlocution, which Pound mimics to more comic effect in his Homage . The imagist interpretation,

1674-595: The elegists, Propertius' work is dominated by a figure of a single female character, one he refers to throughout his poetry by the name Cynthia. She is named in over half the elegies of the first book and appears indirectly in several others, right from the first word of the first poem in the Monobiblos : Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante cupidinibus. Cynthia first captivated wretched me with her eyes, I who had never before been touched by Cupid. Whilst Apuleius identifies her as

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1728-441: The final book. Cynthia's ghost addresses Propertius from beyond the grave with criticism (among other things) that her funeral was not lavish enough, yet the longing of the poet remains in the final line inter complexus excidit umbra meos. - "Her shade then slipped away from my embrace." Book IV strongly indicates Propertius was planning a new direction for his poetry. The book includes several aetiological poems which, in reviewing

1782-483: The house of Sicinius Pontianus, with whom he had been friends when he had studied in Athens. The mother of Pontianus, Pudentilla, was a very rich widow. With her son's consent – indeed encouragement – Apuleius agreed to marry her. Meanwhile, Pontianus himself married the daughter of one Herennius Rufinus; he, indignant that Pudentilla's wealth should pass out of the family, instigated his son-in-law, together with

1836-481: The lyrical "I" to describe their own personal and mournful experiences. They tell the story of the individual rather than the collective lore of his or her people as epic poetry seeks to tell. By the time of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others, the term had come to mean "serious meditative poem": Elegy is a form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It may treat of any subject, but it must treat of no subject for itself; but always and exclusively with reference to

1890-570: The most famous example is Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (1922). In the Islamic world—namely Shia Islam, the most famous examples are elegies written by Sachay Bhai on the Battle of Karbala . Elegies written on Husayn ibn Ali and his followers are very common and produced even today. In Spain, one of the capital works in Spanish is Coplas por la Muerte de su Padre (Stanzas About

1944-446: The mythological origins of Rome and its landmarks, can also be read as critical—even vaguely subversive—of Augustus and his agenda for the new Rome. The position is currently a subject of debate among modern classicists. The final poem is a touching address by the recently deceased Cornelia consoling her husband Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and their three children. Although the poem (given Cornelia's connection to Augustus' family)

1998-477: The other three surviving books of Propertius, modern philological scholarship tends toward a consensus that the extant text "Book Two" in fact represents the conflated remains of what were originally two books of poems. Recent editors of Propertius -- notably Paulo Fedeli (Teubner 1984); compare G.P. Gould's 1990 revision of the Loeb text -- reflect these conclusions in their texts for "Book Two", which show it as such

2052-563: The poet was responsible for much of what the West regards today as "romantic love". The most recent translation appeared in September 2018 from Carcanet Press , and was a Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommended Translation. The collection entitled Poems ( ISBN   9781784106515 ) is edited by Patrick Worsnip with a foreword by Peter Heslin. Elegy#History An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually

2106-493: The poet's ambitious agenda, and includes several aetiological poems explaining the origin of various Roman rites and landmarks. Book IV, the last Propertius wrote, has only half the number of poems as Book I. Given the change in direction apparent in his poetry, scholars assume only his death a short time after publication prevented him from further exploration; the collection may in fact have been published posthumously. An elegy of Ovid dated to 2 BC makes it clear that Propertius

2160-523: The poet's family, if not to the poet himself. During Propertius' childhood, his father died and the family lost land as part of a confiscation , probably the same one which reduced Virgil 's estates when Octavian allotted lands to his veterans in 41 BC. Along with cryptic references in Ovid that imply that he was younger than his contemporary Tibullus , this suggests a birthdate after 55 BC. After his father's death, Propertius' mother set him on course for

2214-430: The poet's tendency to sustain an interior monologue, and the deeply personal nature of his poetry have made Propertius a favorite in the modern age. In 1906 J. S. Phillimore presented a prose translation of Propertius, published by Oxford University Press . Three modern English translations of his work have appeared since 2000, and the playwright Tom Stoppard suggests in his best-known work The Invention of Love that

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2268-402: The poet. As he will feel regret for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love became the principal themes of the elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone or absent and future. A famous example of elegy is Thomas Gray 's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750). In French, perhaps the most famous elegy is Le Lac (1820) by Alphonse de Lamartine . In Germany,

2322-411: The potential dangers of the sea. The images seem to conflict logically and chronologically, and have led different commentators to rearrange the lines or assume some lacunae in the text. More modern critics have pointed out that all the proposed rearrangements assume Propertius' original poetry adhered strictly to the classical literary principles as set down by Aristotle , and so the apparent jumble

2376-478: The sixteenth century; the broader concept was still employed by John Donne for his elegies written in the early seventeenth century. That looser concept is especially evident in the Old English Exeter Book ( c.  1000 CE ), which contains "serious meditative" and well-known poems such as " The Wanderer ", " The Seafarer ", and " The Wife's Lament ". In those elegies, the narrators use

2430-464: The spirited and triumphant defence spoken by Apuleius is still extant. This is known as the Apologia (A Discourse on Magic) . Apuleius accused an extravagant personal enemy of turning his house into a brothel and prostituting his own wife. Of his subsequent career, we know little. Judging from the many works of which he was author, he must have devoted himself diligently to literature. He occasionally gave speeches in public to great reception; he had

2484-436: The state of the manuscript tradition of "Book II." An editor of Propertius, Paul Fedeli, accepts this hypothesis, as does G.P. Goold, editor of the Loeb edition. The publication of a third book came sometime after 23 BC. Its content shows the poet beginning to move beyond simple love themes, as some poems (e.g. III.5) use Amor merely as a starting point for other topics. Book IV, published sometime after 16 BC, displays more of

2538-409: The text as preserved in the manuscripts. A total of 146 Propertius manuscripts survive, the oldest of which dates from the 12th century. However, some of the poems in these manuscripts appear disjointed, such as I.8, which begins as a plea for Cynthia to abandon a planned sea voyage, then closes with sudden joy that the voyage has been called off. This poem has therefore been split by most scholars into

2592-435: The three-book elegiac format imitated by Ovid's Amores) and lastly our Book IV, very likely posthumously. Propertius himself says he was popular and even scandalous in his own day. Horace , however, says that he would have to "endure much" and "stop up his ears" if he had to listen to " Callimachus ... to please the sensitive stock of poets"; Postgate and others see this as a veiled attack on Propertius, who considered himself

2646-588: Was a Numidian Latin -language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He was born in the Roman province of Numidia , in the Berber city of Madauros , modern-day M'Daourouch , Algeria . He studied Platonism in Athens , travelled to Italy , Asia Minor , and Egypt , and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries . The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain

2700-643: Was a municipal magistrate ( duumvir ) who bequeathed at his death the sum of nearly two million sesterces to his two sons. Apuleius studied with a master at Carthage (where he later settled) and later at Athens , where he studied Platonist philosophy among other subjects. He subsequently went to Rome to study Latin rhetoric and, most likely, to speak in the law courts for a time before returning to his native North Africa. He also travelled extensively in Asia Minor and Egypt, studying philosophy and religion, burning up his inheritance while doing so. Apuleius

2754-487: Was an initiate in several Greco-Roman mysteries , including the Dionysian Mysteries . He was a priest of Asclepius and, according to Augustine, sacerdos provinciae Africae (i.e., priest of the province of Carthage). Not long after his return home he set out upon a new journey to Alexandria . On his way there he was taken ill at the town of Oea (modern-day Tripoli ) and was hospitably received into

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2808-416: Was dead by this time. Propertius' fame rests on his four books of elegies, totaling around 92 poems (the exact number cannot be known as over the intervening years, scholars have divided and regrouped the poems, creating doubt as to the precise number). All his poems are written using the elegiac couplet , a form in vogue among the Roman social set during the late 1st century BC. Like the work of nearly all

2862-447: Was most likely an imperial commission, its dignity, nobility, and pathos have led critics to call it the "queen of the elegies", and it is commonly considered the best in the collection. Propertius' style is marked by seemingly abrupt transitions (in the manner of Latin neoteric poetry) and a high and imaginative allusion, often to the more obscure passages of Greek and Roman myth and legend. His idiosyncratic use of language, together with

2916-619: Was the same colonia where Augustine of Hippo later received part of his early education, and, though located well away from the Romanized coast, is today the site of some pristine Roman ruins. As to his first name, no praenomen is given in any ancient source; late-medieval manuscripts began the tradition of calling him Lucius from the name of the hero of his novel. Details regarding his life come mostly from his defense speech ( Apology ) and his work Florida , which consists of snippets taken from some of his best speeches. His father

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