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Propertius 4. 7. 26

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. Laughton
E. Laughton
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

Cynthia's apparition is upbraiding Propertius ior having forgotten her so soon. In spite of their former love, he had not been present at her death, and, because of his neglect, her funeral had been a mean affair, lacking not merely any signs of affection, but any semblance of ordinary decent feeling. In a succession of couplets tracing the regular stages of a Roman funeral from the deathbed to the final rites of the cremation, this lack of respect and affection is particularized: no loving voice had been heard in her dying moments (23–24); her body had been laid out to await the funeral with little thought for what was seemly at such a time (25-26); on the day of the funeral Propertius had not put on mourning or shown signs of grief (27–28); the funeral procession had moved with indecorous haste to the city gate (29–30); Propertius had not been present at the cremation, and no perfumes had been poured on the flames (31–32); no customary final offerings had been made to the ashes (33–34).

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 1-2 , May 1958 , pp. 98 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

1 C.Q. 1949, pp. 28 f.Google ScholarPubMed

2 Butler, and Barber, , The Elegies of Propertius, p. 361.Google Scholar

3 Rothstein, M., Die Elegien des Propertius (1898), ii. 263.Google Scholar

1 The considerations put forward in this paragraph, in so far as they have any cogency, I owe to the late Professor J. Tate. It was as a direct result of discussion with him that the present solution suggested itself.

2 Daremberg-Saglio (loc. cit.) regards Persius 3. 105 as explicit evidence that the body lay facing the house door: in portam rigidas calces extendit. But there appears to be no example elsewhere of porta used in the sense of ianua or fores, and Némethy, in his edition of Persius (p. 203), is surely right in understanding Persius to be reproducing the scene as the funeral procession moves towards the city gate.