Books by Propertius

Edited with Introduction and Notes by W. A. Camps

In this edition of Propertius Book IV, Camps follows the general lines of his earlier edition of Book I (Cambridge, 1960).

Of all the great classical love poets, Propertius is surely one of those with most immediate appeal for the twentieth century reader. His poetry centres on a helpless infatuation for the sinister figure of his mistress, Cynthia, and it is analysed with a tormented but witty grandeur in all its changing moods - from ecstasy to suicidal despair.

Camps presents, without concealing difficulties and uncertainties, a fairly conservative but readable and coherent text, together with such annotation as may help the modern reader of Latin to understand the language and follow the thought of this difficult, much disputed, but very rewarding poet.

Propertius' fourth book is his most challenging and innovative. It disrupts genre; dislocates time and order; and meditates on gender, perception and history. This detailed commentary, with introduction and new text, provides much new material for approaching this important work. Both students and scholars will find it valuable.

The Roman poet Propertius is best known as the writer who perfected the Latin love elegy, a technical as much as a psychological and cultural feat. Propertius has been admired for both his metrical genius and the modernity of his narrative flow. Many of the poems here pay tribute to Cynthia, Propertius's romantic obsession, but the scope of these 107 elegies is broad. Propertius's poetry offers a fascinating look into life in the Augustan age, addressing social, political, and historical subjects. A contemporary of Virgil and Horace, Propertius has influenced scores of poets--from Ovid to Housman to Pound. His poetry appears here for the first time in a dual-language edition with the translations facing the original Latin. Rendered into English by a poet who is also one of the nation's pre-eminent Propertius experts, the volume brings Propertius's difficult mix of vernacular and high literary allusion into contemporary language. Cynthia was the first. She caught me with her eyes, a foolwho had never before been touched by desires.Love cast down my look of constant pride,and he pressed on my head with his feet,until he taught me to despise chaste girls,perversely, and to live without plan.Already, it's been a whole year that the frenzy hasn't stopped,when, for all that, the gods are against me. ?