Propertiana

Extract

It seems to be becoming a fable convenue that Propertius opened his most elaborate book with a poem of hopeless illogicality. Shackleton Bailey complains on 3. 1. 25, ‘nam quis perhaps = quisnam as in Virg. Georg. 4. 445; see on 3. 11. 27. Even so, the absence of logical sequence from the theme of 21–4 (pascitur in uiuis liuor, post fata quiescit) to that of 25–32 (uixere fortes ante Agamemnona) is noteworthy and characteristic… In 33 the poet becomes conscious of having lost his way and uses Homer as a bridge back to the earlier motif.’