Propertius: The Poems [Paperback]

W. G. Shepherd (Author), Betty Radice (Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 080613643X | ISBN-13: 978-0806136431 | Publication Date: September 27, 2004

Flamboyant and passionate, the love poems of Propertius are among the most beautiful to have been written in any language. In this eloquent and consistently faithful translation, W. G. Shepherd does full justice to the work of this remarkable Latin poet.

Born about 48 B.C. in Umbria, Sextus Propertius was one of a group of poets influenced by Greek Alexandrian mannerism who developed the genre of Roman love elegy. Through shifting moods of ecstasy and frustration, his early works celebrate his obsessive love for his mistress, Cynthia. All his work is distinguished by strong visual imagery, richness of language, and an intensely personal style.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Book I. 10. A Sequel To I.5
Book I. 11. Cynthia On Holiday At Baiae
Book I. 12. The Poet Deserted
Book I. 13. Further To I. 10
Book I. 5. Warning To A Rival, A Philanderer
Book I. 6. An Invitation To Serve Abroad Declined
Book I. 7. To An Epic Poet In Praise Of Love Poetry
Book I. 8a. Cynthia Plns To Go Abroad (with A Rich Lover)
Book I. 8b. She Changes Her Mind
Book I. 9. A Sequel To I.7
Book I: 1. Love's Martyr
Book I: 14. Love And Money
Book I: 15. Cynthia Slow To Visit Him In His Illness
Book I: 16. A House-door Complains
Book I: 17. In A Storm At Sea
Book I: 18. In A Lonely Place
Book I: 19. It Is Not Death He Fears
Book I: 2. Natural Beauty
Book I: 20. Hercules And Hylas: A Warning
Book I: 21. A Dead Kinsman Of The Poet Speaks
Book I: 22. The Poet's Birthplace And His Loss
Book I: 3. Late For An Appointment
Book I: 4. Cynthia's Dangerous Attractions
Book Ii: 1. He Is Fated To Write Love Poetry
Book Ii: 10. It's Time To Sing Of Caesar
Book Ii: 11. A Threat To Cynthia
Book Ii: 12. Love's Picture Interpreted
Book Ii: 13. The Poet's Ambition. He Orders His Funeral
Book Ii: 14. His Triumph And The Secret
Book Ii: 15. A Night Of Love
Book Ii: 16. The Praetor Returns From Illyricum
Book Ii: 17. Cheated And Locked Out
Book Ii: 18a. Better Not Complain
Book Ii: 18b. Contrast Aurora's Love For Tithonus
Book Ii: 18c. Hair-dyeing Iniquitous
Book Ii: 19. Cynthia In The Country
Book Ii: 2. A Description Of Cynthia
Book Ii: 20. Ever Faithful
Book Ii: 21. Panthus A Liar
Book Ii: 22a. One Girl Is Not Enough
Book Ii: 22b. Love's Sharpest Hurt
Book Ii: 23. Call-girls Are Best
Book Ii: 24a. He Defends That Choice
Book Ii: 24b. There's Nothing I'll Not Suffer
Book Ii: 25. One Woman's Trouble Enough
Book Ii: 26a. A Dream Of Cynthia Shipwrecked
Book Ii: 26b. Devotion And A Voyage Together
Book Ii: 27. Only The Lover Knows When He Will Die
Book Ii: 28a. Cynthia's Illness
Book Ii: 28b. The Magic Fails But Dis Relents
Book Ii: 29a. Arrested By Amorini
Book Ii: 29b. An Early Morning Visit
Book Ii: 3. She Is Irresistible
Book Ii: 30a. No Escape From Love
Book Ii: 30b. But Loving Is No Crime
Book Ii: 31. The Opening Of Palatine Apollo's Portico
Book Ii: 32. I'm Not Disturbed By Peccadilloes
Book Ii: 33a. The Cult Of Isis
Book Ii: 33b. Cynthia At A Party
Book Ii: 34. To Lynceus On Love And Poetry
Book Ii: 4. Girls Torment Their Lovers; Boys Are Kind
Book Ii: 5. A Warning To Cynthia
Book Ii: 6. Jealousy And Pornographic Pictures
Book Ii: 7. A Proposed Law Withdrawn
Book Ii: 8. He Contemplates Suicide And Murder
Book Ii: 9. He Prays To Die Of Love And Curses His Rival
Book Iii: 1. The Poet's Greek Masters And His Achievement
Book Iii: 10. Cynthia's Birthday
Book Iii: 11. The Power Of Women Over Men
Book Iii: 12. A Modern Ulysses And Penelope
Book Iii: 13. Luxury Is Destroying Rome
Book Iii: 14. The Advantage Of Spartan Athletics
Book Iii: 15. His Faithfulness And The Story Of Dirce
Book Iii: 16. The Midnight Summons
Book Iii: 17. Prayer To Bacchus To Cure His Love
Book Iii: 18. An Elegy On The Death Of Marcellus
Book Iii: 19. Women More Lustful Than Men
Book Iii: 2. The Power And Immortality Of Poetry
Book Iii: 20. A Proposal
Book Iii: 21. Travel Is The Only Cure For Love
Book Iii: 22. To Tullus In Praise Of Italy
Book Iii: 23. Lost, The Poet's Writing Tablets
Book Iii: 24. Free From Love At Last
Book Iii: 25. Goodbye And Fare Ill
Book Iii: 3. The Poet's Dream And His Mission
Book Iii: 4. Caesar Plans War With Parthia
Book Iii: 5. The Poet Worships Peace. His Future Plans
Book Iii: 6. Lygdamus As Go-between
Book Iii: 7. An Elegy For Paetus, Drowned At Sea
Book Iii: 8. Violence A Sign Of Love
Book Iii: 9. Praise Of Maecenas And A Tactful Refusal
Book Iv: 1. Poet And Astrologer: A Dialogue
Book Iv: 10. Jupiter Feretrius And The Spolia Opima
Book Iv: 11. The Dead Cornelia Speaks In Her Own Defence
Book Iv: 2. The God Vertumnus Explains Himself
Book Iv: 3. Letter To A Husband At The Front
Book Iv: 4. The Story Of Tarpeia
Book Iv: 5. A Bawd And Her Advice
Book Iv: 6. A Celebration Of The Victory At Actium
Book Iv: 7. Cynthia's Ghost
Book Iv: 8. An Evening Party Wrecked
Book Iv: 9. Hercules Founds The Ara Maxima
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Latin --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (September 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080613643X
• ISBN-13: 978-0806136431
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,649,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine translation by Guy Lee sticks close to Latin original, March 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Poems (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

I found this a fine and useful translation to read along side the Latin text of Propertius in the Loeb Classical Library (where the facing translation has as its prime aim to help the reader understand the latin; it gets a little dry). Unfortunately, this Oxford World Classics edition does not contain a facing Latin text, like the Oxford World's Classics edition of Catullus (also translated by Guy Lee). Nonetheless, Lee's introduction has to be one of the most interesting and absorbing introductions around, a far cry from the usual jargon-laden tedium that passes for an intro to most paperback classics nowadays. Lee is good on Propertius life and times, and on what he himself is trying to accomplish in the translation - basically, stay as close to the Latin as possible yet still preserve some style to the English. Lee's translations are always elegant on their own and helpful to the "mature student" teaching himself Latin. Try Guy Lee's translations of the Eclogues (Penguin - with facing Latin) and his Catullus (Oxford World Classics - with facing Latin). For a wonderful, well-written account of Propertius and the other great poets of the Augustan era (Virgil, Horace, etc), seek out Jasper Griffin's Latin Poets and Roman Life; like Guy Lee's introduction, Professer Griffin's book is jargon-free, well-written and extremely absorbing - concentrating all the time on the poetry itself and what it has to say (rather than literay theories, etc).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Poems of Propertius, April 28, 2008

By 

K. Murphy "Fortune favors the Bold" (The thriving metropolis of Masury, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poems (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Sextus Propertius was born in a northern Italian family in 60 BC. In his early childhood he would have heard reports of Caesar's conquest of northern Gaul. In his teen years he would have watched the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, and by the time of his death c. 10 BC, he had seen Octavianus found the Roman Empire and declare himself Augustus.

Propertius himself, for all the eventful happenings of his fifty year life,was a man of little importance. He held no important goverment offices, nor did he ever serve in the military. He was basically a Roman middle class 'guy-on-the-street'. It was with his talent as a poet, however, that he gained recognition amongst at least some of the literary elite of his day. Propertius' poems are translated and made to rhyme in English in this great title by Penguin Classics.

Propertius' best poems came from the early years of his life, when he was infatuated with a girl named Cynthia. Most of his poems, and all his best ones, are odes to Cynthia, in which he praises her beauty but condemns her fickle and contrary behavior. Though the content of some of these poems would seem almost 'kinky' to modern ears (at least to modern ears unfamiliar with Propertius's contemporary Ovidus), and his devotion to Cynthia sometimes seems rather pitiful, the poems have not lost their luster after 2000 years and are enough to take your breath away. Propertius also wrote poems on mythology and on the countryside of his beloved Italia, and these are enjoyable as well.

For me personally, one of the neatest things about Propertius' poems is how they offer a first-hand look at the life of a middle class inhabitant of Rome-he is neither wealthy nor poor, he leads a fairly comfortable but obscure existence, and is thus his day's version of many of us. To me this can make some of his writings, even on the mudane situations of his day, seem profound.

In short, though Propertius was not the best, much less the most famous of his day's writers, he provides us with a unique look at the changing Republic in which he was born and at love and sexuality for the common man in the Roman world, and this Penguin translation offers it in a well-organized and readable fashion.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Overly dry translation, September 14, 2004

By 

Kuru (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poems (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Shepherd's translations suffer from persistent flatness; there is little poetry to be found in them. While footnotes explaining obscure mythological references serve a purpose, you know the translator is having trouble when footnotes are also used to explain substantive meanings within the translations. The overall feeling one gets is that Shepherd managed to translate the poems from Latin into English, but failed to take the further step of rendering them back into poetry.