Word: propertius
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Already a prodigious classics scholar at 18, he spent his days emendating the Latin poet Propertius instead of reading the syllabus. When he failed his final exams, the undergraduate's pride was crushed. At home, his father had run through the modest family fortune, and for a drab and agonizing decade Housman clerked in the London Patent Office...
...skill to spare. Poet Humphries renders Ovid's famed, amoral The Art of Love in its most readable translation since Dryden's, including in his book much of Ovid's remaining love poetry. Critic Highet assembles an ingratiating montage of seven Latin poets (Catullus, Vergil, Propertius, Horace, Tibiillus. Ovid. Juvenal), combining samples of the poetry, biographical sketches, bits of social history and a latter-day tour of his heroes' haunts...
...fought the Punic Wars, while themselves breathing the elegant, enervating and sometimes fetid air of imperial Rome. They tended to polish more than to publish. Only Vergil attempted the epic, and he thought so poorly of The Aeneid that on his deathbed he asked to destroy the manuscript. Catullus, Propertius and Tibullus were ravaged by hard-boiled mistresses, and their poems tell of virtually the only battle they ever fought-the war between the sexes. They knew or sensed that their culture was on its long day's journey into night-and suggested mostly pleasure to ease the journey...
...slope. Elaborate baths (hot and cold swimming pools with steam rooms, massage and floor shows) cleansed and entertained vacationing senators and consuls. The place acquired a highly questionable reputation. The dramatist Terence wrote: "At Baiae one never knows what the night will bring," and the poet Propertius warned his girl friend that "The waters of Baiae lead to immoral love." At Baiae Nero built the biggest bath, and a vast covered pool. Here he also tried to drown his mother...
...your Aug. 22 issue: "[Elizabeth Taylor's] complexion has been described by an ecstatic publicity man as 'a bowl of cream with a rose floating in it.' " Please compare . . . Elegy on Cynthia of Sextus Propertius: "Lilies would not surpass my mistress for whiteness; 'tis as though maeotic snows were to strive with Spanish vermillion, or rose leaves floated amid stainless milk (utque rosae puro lacte natant folia)." Please remember Propertius lived circa 24 B.C., and besides, Cynthia, we are told, had yellow hair and black eyes. Could she have been the ecstatic publicity...