Charm

Sextus Propertius

Sun & Moon Press, 1995 - Poetry - 151 pages

Poetry. Born near Assisi around 50 B.C., Sextus Propertius was one of the great writers of love poetry in Roman literature. His first book of poems, published in Rome when he was about 20 years of age, made him an overnight sensation. This book caught the attention of one of the great literary benefactors of Rome, Maecenas, who had supported and befriended both Horace and Vergil. Propertius, accordingly, was introduced into their circle. Propertius' great love was a woman he called Cynthia in his poems (although her real name may have been Hostia), and it is his first-person account of their tempestuous relationship that forms the first and second books of his poetry. Using a colloquial and, at times, jaunty everyday language, New York poet Vincent Katz captures the spirit of the original and breathes fresh air into Propertius' painfully obsessive lyrics.

Contents

• POEMS: 9
• Cynthia was the first She caught: 63
• while a pair commanded me gripped: 71
• Cynthia is tried by no curse more gravely: 77
• this is how my lifes used up: 87
• 8B rare Cynthia is mine: 95
• not light is the medicine in my words: 101
• Cynthia was the first Cynthia will: 109
• be whatever you want just not alien: 119

About the author

Propertius was deprived of his Umbrian estate in the confiscation of the civil war. He applied his rhetorical education not to the courts, but to poetry. His first book of elegies to "Cynthia" won him the patronage of Maecenas and established his reputation as a passionate, witty, self-absorbed, and learned poet. The three books that followed invoke Cynthia, but also carry tributes to Maecenas, to Roman greatness, addresses to friends, and antiquarian fragments.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Charm; Issue 89 of Sun & Moon classics
• Author: Sextus Propertius
• Translated by: Vincent Katz
• Contributor: W. R. Johnson
• Publisher: Sun & Moon Press, 1995
• ISBN: 1557132240, 9781557132246
• Length: 151 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / General