There are Spirits, of a kind: death does not end it all, and the pale ghost escapes the ruined pyre. For Cynthia, lately buried beside the roadway’s murmur, seemed to lean above my couch, when sleep was denied me after love’s interment, and I grieved at the cold kingdom of my bed. The same hair she had, that was borne to the grave, the same eyes: her garment charred against her side: the fire had eaten the beryl ring from her finger, and Lethe’s waters had worn away her lips. She sighed out living breath and speech, but her brittle hands rattled their finger-bones.
‘Faithless man, of whom no girl can hope for better, does sleep already have power over you? Are the tricks of sleepless Subura now forgotten, and my windowsill, worn by nocturnal guile? From which I so often hung on a rope dropped to you, and came to your shoulders, hand over hand. Often we made love at the crossroads, and breast to breast our cloaks made the roadways warm. Alas for the silent pact whose false words the uncaring South-West Wind has swept away!
None cried out at the dying light of my eyes: I’d have won another day if you’d recalled me. No watchman shook his split reeds for me: but, jostled, a broken tile cut my face. Who, at the end, saw you bowed at my graveside: who saw your funeral robe hot with tears? If you disliked going beyond the gate, you could have ordered my bier to travel there more slowly. Ungrateful man, why couldn’t you pray for a wind to fan my pyre? Why weren’t my flames redolent of nard? Was it such an effort, indeed, to scatter cheap hyacinths, or honour my tomb with a shattered jar?
Let Lygdamus be branded: let the iron be white-hot for the slave of the house: I knew him when I drank the pale and doctored wine. And crafty Nomas, let her destroy her secret poisons: the burning potsherd will show her guilty hands. She who was open to the common gaze, those worthless nights, now leaves the track of her golden hem on the ground: and, if a talkative girl speaks of my beauty unjustly, she repays with heavier spinning tasks. Old Petale’s chained to a foul block of wood, for carrying garlands to my tomb: Lalage is whipped, hung by her entwined hair, since she dared to offer a plea in my name.
You’ve let the woman melt down my golden image, so she might have her dowry from my fierce pyre. Still, though you deserve it, I’ll not criticise you, Propertius, my reign has been a long one in your books. I swear by the incantation of the Fates none may revoke, and may three-headed Cerberus bark gently for me, that I’ve been faithful, and if I lie, may the vipers hiss on my mound, and lie entwined about my bones.
There are two places assigned beyond the foul stream, and the whole crowd of the dead row on opposing currents. One carries Clytemnestra’s faithlessness, another the monstrous framework of the lying Cretan cow: see, others swept onwards in a garlanded boat, where sweet airs caress Elysian roses, where tuneful lutes, where Cybele’s cymbals sound, and turbaned choirs to the Lydian lyre.
Andromeda and Hypermestre, blameless wives, tell their story, with accustomed feeling: the first complains her arms are bruised, with the chains of her mother’s pride, that her hands were un-deserving of the icy rock. Hypermestre tells of her sisters daring, her mind incapable of committing such a crime. So with the tears of death we heal life’s passions: I conceal the many crimes of your unfaithfulness.
But now I give this command to you, if perhaps you’re moved, if Chloris’ magic herbs have not quite entranced you: don’t let Parthenie, my nurse, lack in her years of weakness: she was known to you, was never greedy with you. And don’t let my lovely Latris, named for her serving role, hold up the mirror to some fresh mistress.
Then burn whatever verses you made about my name: and cease now to sing my praises.
Drive the ivy from my mound that with grasping clusters, and tangled leaves, binds my fragile bones; where fruitful Anio broods over fields of apple-branches, and ivory is unfading, because of Hercules’ power.
Write, on a column’s midst, this verse, worthy of me but brief, so the traveller, hurrying, from the city, might read:
HERE IN TIBUR’S EARTH LIES CYNTHIA THE GOLDEN:
ANIO FRESH PRAISE IS ADDED TO YOUR SHORES.
And don’t deny the dreams that come through sacred gateways: when sacred dreams come, they carry weight. By night we suffer, wandering, night frees the imprisoned spirits, and his cage abandoned Cerberus himself strays. At dawn the law demands return to the pools of Lethe: we are borne across, and the ferryman counts the load he’s carried.
Now, let others have you: soon I alone will hold you: you’ll be with me, I’ll wear away the bone joined with bone.’
After she’d ended, in complaint, her quarrel with me her shadow swiftly slipped from my embrace.
—Sextus Propertius
Propertius 4.7, translated by A. S. Kline
