Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T06:47:28.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Readings in Propertius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Otto Skutsch
Affiliation:
University College London

Extract

Normally, if A knows B, B knows A, and ‘Lake Garda knows me’ is a poetic way of saying ‘I know Lake Garda’. The exchange of subject and object elevates diction and sentiment, but it can also help with the metre, especially where nouns such as gloria. and femina are concerned. Thus in 1.8. 46 the poet says ista meam norit gloria canitiem when in strict logic he should have said istam mea norit gloriam canities. Similarly here what he really wants to says is qua dum iter faciam feminam nullam norim. He must have been aware that the relationship is reciprocal, and something like oblitusque mearum, obliuiscendus et illis may well have been in his mind. But his main desire was to forget and not to know anything of women any more.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)