This poem doesn’t mention Cynthia, the object of the suffering and frustration that Propertius bemoans in the first piece in this book, by name, but the musical accomplishments referred to at the end mean that it is probably her: in contrast with the previous poem, the narrator is now sounding very much like an accepted lover. Whether Cynthia was a real person, or one that Propertius created as part of a literary back-story for his poetry, we can’t be sure. The theme – the superiority of simple, natural beauty to artifice and ornament – appears in poetry contemporary with Propertius and was probably an established one.
Making and recognising mythological references of the kind he uses here and elsewhere would be a sign of taste and elegance in Propertius and his audience: building up evidence to support the proposition you were making by quoting several relevant examples is characteristic both of Roman rhetoric and poetry. Leucippus was a legendary king and Castor and Pollux were Helen of Troy’s divine brothers. Evenus fell into a river, later named after him, while pursuing Idas who had abducted his daughter, in whom Apollo was also interested. Hippodamia was a princess whom the hero Pelops won by cheating her father in a chariot race, which explains the reference to wheels. Apelles, a real person, was one of the most famous painters of classical antiquity.
See the blog post with Velasquez’s Rokeby Venus here.
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