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Mouseion. Series III, Vol. 4 (2004) 127-143
©2004 Mouseion
"GOODBYE TO ALL THAT": PROPERTIUS' MAGNUM ITER
BETWEEN ELEGIES 3. 16 AND 3.21'
JACQUELINE CLARKE
Propertius' third book of elegies is a very interesting study because
within it he makes the transition from writing almost exclusively on
love to elegies on other themes. Hubbard observes that the book deserves
a lengthy and complete analysis because it is one of the rare
ancient books in which we can see a poet discontent with what has
brought him success and striving for a new manner. 2
By examining
this work we gain insight into Propertius' attempts to adapt the poetic
form of elegy to meet external and internal pressures and trace his
evolution as a poet.
As many critics have observed, from the very outset the book has a
different feel to iP In the first two books of elegies Propertius' mistress
Cynthia dominates the initial poems. In I. I Cynthia prima corne
as the first words and in 2. I Propertius claims that it is his mistress
rather than the Muse Calliope who inspires him (3-4). The opening of
Book 3, however, is quite different. Propertius neither addresses Cynthia
nor talks about her but summons the shades of Callimachus and
Philetas (I). With his call upon Greek models. Propertius signals that
there will be a departure from personal love elegy, for. as Hubbard
observes, love elegy did not choose to represent itself as the result of a
successful plundering expedition from Greece. 4 When a few lines later
I This article was first delivered as a paper at the Department of Greek and
Roman Studies at the University of Calgary, Alberta in November 2003. I am
grateful for the feedback I received on my paper on that occasion. especially from
Professor Peter Toohey who made a number of helpful suggestions. My thanks
also to Professor Butrica for his comments on my article.
2 M. Hubbard. Propertius (London 1974) 92. All quotations from Propertius are
from Barber'socr edition (1960).
3 H.E. Butler and E.A. Barber, The Elegies ofPropertius (Oxford 1933) xii; ].L.
Marr, "Structure and sense in Propertius III." Mnemosyne21 (1978) 266.
4 "Whether because the Greek genre. the epigram. that elegy derived from was
so minor or because of the poets' consciousness that Roman elegy as it had developed
did not owe its form to any Greek poet. love elegy did not chose to represent
itself as the result of a successful plundering expedition" (Hubbard [above. n.
2]69). }.L. Butrica argues that the type of learned Hellenistic elegy. exemplified by
Callimachus, to which Propertius aspires is almost directly antithetical to Roman
love elegy: "The Amores of Propertius; Unity and structure in Books 2-4."
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