One of the Two Delinquencies

One of the Two Delinquencies

Gendering Ambiguous Vocality in Propertius 3.6

Kit Payne-Jaeger, Cornell University, Class of 2020

Abstract

Poem 3.6 in the Propertian corpus is the quintessential Roman love elegy in its depiction of jilted lover and jealous mistress, yet effectively unique in the textual ambiguity of its speaker’s identity. Lines 18-34 seem to be the outburst of a female speaker who is absent from the scene, but is she being quoted directly or are her words the product of the poet’s imagination? This paper argues that the passage’s rhetorical and grammatical choices, engagement with a contemporary literary tradition, and treatment of such elegiac tropes as servitium amoris and the dangerous rival in love affirm that it is the poet, rather than the puella, who is the speaker, imagining the possible words of his lover.

Though the formal framework of poem 3.6 is almost unique within the corpus of Sextus Propertius, relatively little scholarship addresses the ambiguity of its potential speakers. Per the paradigm of love elegy, it is “built upon the presumed existence of a love triangle involving poet, mistress and rival,” the rival here being a speculation on the part of the speaker. 1 But, given the lack of reliable textual identification, Propertius 3.6 raises the question: who is the speaker? 2 In the opening lines of the poem the answer is straightforward: the speaker is the poet, a conclusion consistent with the rest of the Propertian oeuvre and emphasized with mihi and nostra puella (3.6.1). 3 At line 18, however, one encounters another mihi, a female speaker who is physically absent from the scene. McCarthy describes the dilemma of lines 18-34 as “whether we are to believe that the Ego [the poet] speaks only the first seven couplets and the last four couplets [...] or alternatively that the whole poem is spoken in the voice of the Ego and lines [18-34] constitute [...] his free speculation as to what is going on at the woman’s house.” 4 That is, the speaker of 18-34 may be (1) Lygdamus, the poet’s slave, quoting the words of the actual speaker, presumably Cynthia, or (2) the poet as speaker inventing what he believes those words to be. Based on the poem’s deft deployment of conventional elegiac rhetoric and the specifics of the individual passage’s engagement with magic as literary motif, this paper will argue for the probability of the latter. The poet first demonstrates the reality of the speaker’s identity via the gendered implications of “her” mode of rhetoric. Though both male and female characters in elegiac poetry may employ particular rhetorical tools, the frequency and expert use of elegiac devices in lines 18-34 resemble more closely the technique of poet rather than mistress. Caston reminds us that “Roman elegy is full of language expressing the importance of pledges, promise, and oaths” 5 — that is, legal language, with which the speaker begins: haec te teste mihi promissa est, Lygdame, merces? / est poena et servo rumpere teste fidem (3.6.18-19). 6 At no other point in the corpus does Cynthia use the juridical language of testor, but here not only does she seem to use Lygdamus as witness, “she actual

5 Caston, The elegiac passion, 142. 6 Latin text from Heyworth and Morwood, 66. “Is this the reward promised to me, Lygdamus, my witness? There is a punishment for breaking faith, with a slave as witness.” All translations the author’s own. ly invokes the legal sense (te teste).” 7 The poet, however, utilizes testor often, as in 1.13, where he depicts himself as a kind of legal witness to Gallus’ affections. 8 This cannot, of course, be conclusive, but taken in context with the remainder of the passage, it appears a deliberate deployment of vocabulary that the experienced reader of elegy will associate with the poet, the beginning of a series of textual ploys that foreground the literal speaker (Propertius) rather than the imagined (Cynthia). These elegiac tip-offs, as it were, continue with ille potest nullo miseram me linquere facto (3.6.20). 9 Miseram me is a standard elegiac exclamation — the same one, in fact, with which the corpus begins: Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis (1.1.1). 10 Even in adopting the voice of Cynthia, the poet utilizes phraseologies unique to his rhetoricity and the genre in which he locates himself. Likewise, the declaration si placet, insultet, Lygdame, morte mea (3.6.23), an invitation to mock the speaker’s death, resembles the poet’s rhetorical expressions of despair more closely than Cynthia’s. 11 James notes, “Cynthia is typically represented as irate rather than pathetic”; here the speaker is despondent rather than irate, implying that, with her love thwarted, she has no choice but to perish. 12 Such an association of love and death is also characteristic of elegy, and of the vocality of the Propertian narrator in particular. 13 In poem 1.15, he declares quis ego nunc pereo, similis moniturus amantes (1.15.40-41), 14 and in 2.1 asks Maecenas to mourn him with huic misero fatum dura puella fuit (2.1.75-76). 15

7 McCarthy, “Lost and found voices,” 167. 8 Sextus Propertius and William Camps, Elegies: book I, edited by William Camps(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 30-31. 9 Latin text from Heyworth and Morwood, 67. “He cannot forsake miserable me, who has done nothing.” 10 Latin text from Camps, 17. “Cynthia first seized miserable me with her eyes.” 11 Latin text from Heyworth and Morwood, 67. “If it pleases him, let him mock my death.” 12 Sharon L. James, “‘Ipsa dixerat’: Women’s Words in Roman Love Elegy,” Phoenix 64, no. 3/4 (2010): 337, accessed April 27 2018, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/10.2307/23074749. 13 See Baker, 1970, on the nuance of Propertian interaction with themes of love and death. 14 Latin text from Camps, 34. “[The eyes] which I now die for, warning lovers like myself.” 15 Latin text from Sextus Propertius and Lucian Mueller, Sex. Propertii Elegiae, edited by Lucian Mueller (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898), http://www.thelatinlibrary. com/prop2.html. “A hard girl was the fate of this miserable one.”

In both cases, the resistance of the lover, explicit or implied, becomes the speaker’s cause of death. Furthermore, the malediction in lines 32-33 is a quintessential example of the Propertian narrator’s frequent pleas to Venus: putris et in vacuo texetur aranea lecto: / noctibus illorum dormiet ipsa Venus (3.6.32-33). 16 In two poems censuring Cynthia for infidelity, the poet makes pleas in the same rhetorical category, tantum illi Pantho ne sit amica Venus (2.21.2) and at tu nunc nostro, Venus, o succurre dolori, / rumpat ut assiduis membra libidinibus (2.16.12-13). 17 The image of the spider weaving in the empty bed in line 32 is an atypically eloquent metaphor for the puella, but characteristic of the poet. Likewise, invoking Venus is a common reaction to a lover’s philandering if it is the poet’s, but unique in the corpus if it is the puella’s.

The speaker’s attitude toward aggression and punishment is an additional argument for gendering him as male, and thus the poet. Physical and verbal abuse are both conventions of elegy, as seen in the blows and bruises of poem 3.8, but “women are… represented as using physical blows, while men explicitly avoid brute aggression, resorting to verbal abuse instead.” 1819 Though Cynthia is not incapable of verbal abuse, poems like 3.8 seem to suggest that physical attacks are her preferred method of punishment; thus the objections of the speaker in lines 15-34 indicate a more masculine — in the elegiac sense — reaction to adulterous behavior. Caston agrees that “[Cynthia’s] portrayal in this poem is designed to resemble the male lover’s [...] her response is angry and verbally abusive.” 20 Of course, one can argue that such a conclusion is inaccurate: what is the threat of poena erit ante meos sera sed ampla pedes, if not a threat of physical abuse? 21 I would posit, however, that the lack of specificity in the nature of the poena and focus on the act of submission invoke not feminine physical abuse but the elegiac trope of servitium amoris, the enslavement of love, particular to the male poet’s discourse. Physical punishment is a key element of servitium: “marks on the body reveal physical humiliation like a master’s blows upon a slave, imagery that fits easily with the motif of servitium amoris operative in the elegiac context.” 22 Rather than expressing a simple desire to physically attack the false lover, as might be more typical of Cynthia qua Cynthia, the speaker deliberately imposes the conventions of servitium amoris upon that potential physical attack, suggesting both the literary capabilities and the personal desires of the poet rather than the puella.

Also demonstrating that the passage is a projection of the Propertian narrator is its engagement with magic, especially in its juxtaposition of the mistress’s witch rival with other such magical women drawn from the elegiac and/or pastoral literary tradition. Caston reminds the reader that in poems such as Propertius 3.6, “the lover also explores his jealousy by engaging with art and liter

16 Latin text from Heyworth and Morwood, 67. “The spider will weave rot in an empty bed: Venus herself will sleep through their nights.” 17 Latin text from Propertius and Mueller, n.p. “As many times let Venus fail to be a friend to that Panthus;” “Venus, help me in my pain, that his limbs may be destroyed by constant lusts.” 18 Heyworth and Morwood, 69-70. 19 Caston, 18. 20 Ibid., 52. 21 “His punishment at my feet will be late and long.” 22 Ibid., 100. ature,” 23 in this case specifically with Theocritus’ Idylls 2, Vergil’s Eclogues 8, and Horace’s Epodes 5. Pillinger (2012) remarks that “these poems clearly relate at least as much to each other as they do to any purportedly ‘real-world’ spells. The song quoted… in Virgil’s eighth Eclogue is based on Simaetha’s song in Theocritus’ second Idyll,” and, indeed, the magic of 3.6 is clearly derived from a Theocritean poetic lineage. 24 The first magical tool the speaker identifies is ille rota staminea rhombi, a rhomboid wheel on a string, which appears in the second Idyll:

χὠς δινεῖθ᾽ ὅδε ῥόμβος ὁ χάλκεος ἐξἈφροδίτας, ὥς τῆνος δινοῖτο ποθ᾽ ἁμετέραισι θύραισιν. (2.30-31) 25

The Propertian speaker accuses her rival of using the rhombos to lead the poet to her — exactly as the amateur witch Simaetha in Theocritus’ Idyll attempts to compel her lover to “whirl at our door.” She adds that she will σαύραν τοι τρίψασα κακὸν ποτὸν αὔριον οἰσῶ (2.58), use the pulverized bones of a lizard in a love charm; likewise, the speaker in 3.6 mentions lecta exsuctis anguibus ossa trahunt, the dried bones of another reptile. 26 It is Horace’s witch Canidia’s brand of magic, however, with which the speaker seems to be most familiar:

[…] uncta turpis ova ranae sanguine plumamque nocturnae strigis herbasque, quas Iolcos atque Hiberia mittit venenorum ferax, et ossa ab ore rapta ieiunae canis […] (5.19-23) 27

Here the poet identifies as Canidia’s magical ingredients “the blood of the foul toad,” “the feathers of the nocturnal screech owl,” “herbs which Iolcus and Hiberia send,” and “bones seized from the mouth of a hungry dog.” This list is nearly identical to that presented in 3.6: herbis improba, turgentis sanie portenta rubetae, lecta exsuctis anguibus ossa, and strigis inventae per busta iacentia plumae. McCarthy notes that “it is significant that this odd poem is one of the few love poems in a book designed to present its author as a serious literary figure, as worthy of respect as is his fellow vates, Horace.” 28 I would suggest, rather, that this poem does aid its author’s effort to present himself as a literary light, corresponding to a recognized tradition and proving his poetic credibility. It is, then, only logical to conclude that the speaker using this tradition is the poet; why would Cynthia employ Horatian rhetoric in distress?

23 Caston, 132. 24 Emily Pillinger, “‘And the gods dread to hear another poem’: the repetitive poetics of witchcraft from Virgil to Lucan,” Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 68 (2012): 43, accessed April 27 2018, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/10.2307/23487468. 25 Greek text from Theocritus, “Idyll 2,” in Theocritus. Moschus. Bion, edited and translated byNeil Hopkinson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ theocritus-poems_i-xxx/2015/pb_ LCL028.37.xml. “As this brass wheel turns by the grace of Aphrodite, so let him spin around at our door.” 26 Ibid. 27 Latin text from Quintus Horatius Flaccus and Friedrich Vollmer, “V,” in Q. Horatii Flacci Carmina, edited by Friedrich Vollmer (Leipzig: Teubner, 1912), http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/horace/ep.shtml#V. 28 McCarthy, 164.

The imagined enactor of this poetic tradition — the rival in love — is equally crucial. While it is true that the rival embodies a dire fate for the mistress, she is also a locus for the creative and sexual anxieties of the poet: her magic threatens the “spell” of his poetics and falsifies elegiac love; her inferior social status threatens his own social position. The reader is evidently meant to infer that she is a courtesan, based on the phrase qualem nolo dicere (3.6.21) and her practice of magic. 29 Like ancient practitioners of magic, enslaved sex workers in ancient Rome were marginalized individuals, causing a compulsive conflation of occupation: per Dickie (2000), “many of the women who are portrayed engaging in love-magic are prostitutes [or] ex-prostitutes [...] [who were] believed to practise magic freely, whereas in Augustan Rome [...] respectable women were imagined to be extremely unwilling to engage in such practices.” 30 The rival is doubly othered, doubly objectionable, and doubly dangerous, not only to Cynthia, the “respectable” woman, but to the poet who envisions her. Prince affirms that the poet “will try to gain control over her [Cynthia] through his own brand of love magic”— that is, his elegiac efforts — but what is the purpose of his poetic charms if practical magic is effective? 31 It is not for nothing that “[the poets] emphasize the difficulty of making someone reciprocate and the lover’s disbelief in the effectiveness of love magic.” 32 The success of the rival’s Hellenistic magic would threaten not only the personal safety of the poet, but his raison d’être, his very ability to communicate, his slim margin of status and respect. Qualem nolo dicere, in this sense, carries a sinister implication: the power of the magic user could render the poet literally unable to speak, his mode of expression worthless.

Moreover, given the rung she occupies in the society of Augustan Rome, the courtesan-rival can be located as an object of the poet’s anxiety about competitors of inferior status, displaced onto the person of Cynthia. Regardless of whether the individual competing is the poet or the mistress, if the rival succeeds in magical practice or another form of attraction, “one has to suffer the indignity of being beaten out by one who is regarded as a social inferior, thus lowering one’s own status even further.” 33 This speech is not merely Cynthia distressed at the prospect of losing her lover to a courtesan, particularly since there is substantial textual support for the hypothesis that she may be one; it is also the poet literalizing his concerns about his own sensitive status and in what ways magic or other techniques of attraction may come to problematize it. Regarding Epodes 5, mentioned above, Watson observes that “Horace, by representing magic as carried on by the very scum of the polis, conveys an implicit warning against such activities to upper-class devotees of sorcery.” 34 Magic is a risky, chaotic practice, one that offers marginalized people the ability to

29 Heyworth and Morwood, 67. 30 Matthew W. Dickie, “Who practised love-magic in classical antiquity and in the late Roman world?” Classical Quarterly 50, no. 2 (2000): 581, accessed May 17 2018, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/10.2307/1558912. 31 Meredith Prince, “Medea and the inefficacy of love magic: Propertius 1.1 and Tibullus 1.2,” The Classical Bulletin 79, no. 2 (2003): 211. 32 Prince, 205. 33 Caston, 58. 34 Lindsay Watson, “Epode 5,” in A commentary on Horace’s epodes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 181. injure or control those superior to them, the “power to reverse the natural order of things.” 35 The poet constructs a similar dualism in this passage, juxtaposing Cynthia — whose higher status is indicated by her niveas manus, gemmae, and tristes ministrae — with the common, volatile rival who must engage in magic even to attempt to win the man whom she desires. 36 Given that the courtesan-rival is a product of the speaker’s imagination, it is simple to understand her as the epitome of what the poet does not want. Propertius’ identification of the rival as a magic user and a person occupying a liminal social position suggests a figure imaginatively tailored not to the puella’s creative, social, and sexual anxieties, but to the poet’s.

Role-playing is something the poet does expertly; Caston, for instance, comments that “he adopts the role of victim but also teacher, a female but also male role, the voice of the love poet but also that of an epic or tragic hero.” 37 In choosing to inhabit the persona of the puella, he has produced a deft combination of Cynthian sentiment and Propertian vocality, quite plausible as a grieving woman’s response to a lover she perceives to be unfaithful, but inextricable from the rhetoric and leitmotif that denotes the individualism of the poet. McCarthy notes at one point, rather skeptically, that “if we imagine this speech constituting an independent poem, it fits most closely with the norms of Propertius’s book 1,” 38 to which one may say: why not? Perhaps this passage does constitute a kind of poem-within-a-poem, a psychological experiment in which the poet integrates his elegiac persona with that of the mistress.

The exact circumstances under which he is conducting this experiment deserve longer consideration than can be given to them in this paper. If one accepts that the poet is the speaker of this passage, fantasizing about Cynthia’s reaction, that then compels the reader to consider the question of how much of the poem is an imaginary sequence. It may be that the poet is merely using the scenario of “speaking to a slave about a lovers’ quarrel” as a tool, a set piece of sorts, with which to engage in this role-playing, and that no part of this scene has a basis in actuality; conversely, it may be that Lygdamus, the other figure present in the poem, is a real presence in the scene who simply is not given an opportunity to speak in the text. The latter seems to me more likely, as the logic of the Propertian “storyworld” (as McCarthy puts it) tends to assume the textual reality of the events and characters appearing. If the poet is speculating to Lygdamus in this passage as to what Cynthia has said, Lygdamus can be both a free agent, so to speak, in the storyworld and a convenient audience for the poet’s experimentation in a metapoetic sense — that is to say, the literal action and reaction of the scene can exist in conjunction with its literary and rhetorical resonance. Propertius is a poet of binaries: passion and death, male and female, humor and gravity, poetry and reality. Why not consider this poem as such a liminal space — neither as Lygdamus’ straightforward quotation nor the poet’s mindless fantasy, but as a creative, multilayered game of rhetoric?

35 Gardner, “Taming the velox puella,” 114. 36 “White hands,” “gems,” and “sorrowing maidservants.” 37 Caston, 158. 38 Ibid., 172.

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