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Book II.9:1-52

CYNTHIA'S NEW LOVER

Propertius

That which he is, I was, often: but perhaps one day he’ll be thrown out, and another one will be dearer to you.

Penelope was able to live un-touched for twenty years, a woman worthy of so many suitors. She was able to evade marriage by cunning weaving, cleverly unravelling the day’s weft by night: and though she never hoped to see Ulysses again, she stayed, growing old, waiting for his return. Briseis, too, clutching dead Achilles, beat at her own bright face with frenzied hands, and, a weeping slave, bathed her bloodstained lord, as he lay by the yellow waters of Simois, and besmirched her hair, and lifted the mighty bones and flesh of great Achilles with her weak hands. Peleus was not with you Achilles, nor your sea-goddess mother, nor Scyrian Deidamia, bereaved in her bed.

So it was that Greece, then, was happy in its true daughters: then honour was respected even among the camps. But you, you, impious girl, couldn’t be free a single night, or remain alone a single day! Why, you both drank from the cup, laughing away: and perhaps there were wicked words about me. You even chase after him, who left you once before. The gods grant that you may enjoy being slave to that man!

Were they for this the vows I undertook for your health, when the waters of Styx had all but gone over your head, and we friends stood, weeping, round your bed? Where was he, by the gods, faithless girl, what was he then to you?

What if I was a soldier, detained in far-off India, or my ship was stationed on the Ocean? But it’s easy for you to compose lies and deceits: that is one art that women have always learned. The Syrtes’s shoals don’t change as quickly in the shifting storms: the leaves don’t tremble as quickly in the wintry South-west gale, as a woman’s given word fails in her anger, whether the cause is weighty, or whether the cause is slight.

Now, since this willfulness pleases you, I concede. I beg you, Boys, bring out your sharper arrows, compete at shooting me, and free my life from me! My blood will be a great honour to you.

The stars are witnesses, girl, and the frost at dawn, and the doors that opened secretly for unhappy me, that nothing in my life was ever as dear as you: and you will be, from now on, also, though you’re so unkind to me. No woman will leave a trace in my bed: I’ll be alone, since I can’t be yours. And I wish, if I’ve lead a pious life, maybe, for that man, in the midst of love, to become a stone!