PoeForward.com

POETRY: Ancient Classical Modern Contemporary

ANCIENT: Propertius Sappho Catullus

Propertius: Propertius Poems

HOME

POE

EVENTS

POETRY

GALLERIES

DEAD GIRLS

LIBRARY

ABOUT US

Book III.15:1-46

HE ASKS CYNTHIA NOT TO BE JEALOUS

Propertius

So let me know, now, no more storms in my love, and let the night not come to me when I lie awake without you! When the modesty of my boyhood’s purple-bordered toga was hidden from me, and I was given freedom to know the ways of love, she, Lycinna, was my confederate: oh not one to be taken with gifts, she first initiated my inexperienced spirit on its first nights.

While three years have passed (it is not much less) I can barely remember ten words between us. Your love has buried everything, no woman, since you, has thrown a sweet chain about my neck.

Dirce is evidence, made jealous by a true reproach that Antiope had slept with her Lycus. Ah, how often the queen tore at Antiope’s lovely hair, and pierced her tender cheeks with ungentle fingernails! How often she loaded the servant girl with unreasonable tasks, and ordered her to sleep on the hard ground! Often she suffered her to live in filth and darkness, often she refused her foul water for her thirst. Jupiter will you never help Antiope’s deep trouble? Heavy chains scar her wrists. If you are a god, your girl’s slavery’s a shame on you: whom but Jupiter should Antiope cry to when fettered?

Yet on her own, with whatever strength was in her body, she broke the royal manacles with both hands. Then with frightened step she ran to Cithaeron’s heights. It was night and her sad couch was scattered with frost. Often troubled by the echoing sound of the rushing Asopus, she thought that her mistress’s steps were behind her. Driven from her house their mother tested her hard-hearted son Zethus and her son Amphion easily moved to tears.

And as the sea ceases its vast heaving, when the East wind leaves its assault on the South-West, and the coast is quiet, and the sounds of the shore diminish, so the girl sank on her bended knees. Still piety came though late: her sons knew their error. Worthy old shepherd who reared Jupiter’s sons, you restored the mother to her boys, and they fastened Dirce, to be dragged to death beneath the savage bull’s horns. Antiope, know Jupiter’s power: Dirce is your glory dragged along to meet death in many places. Zethus’s fields are bloodied, and Amphion sings the Paeans from your cliffs, Aracynthus.

But be careful of tormenting Lycinna who does not deserve it: your headlong anger knows no retreat. May no story about us strike your ears: you alone I will love, though burned by the funeral pyre.