There are such things as ghosts – death does not put an end to everything, and a pallid shade escapes the defeated pyres, for I saw Cynthia, who had just been buried by the bustle at the highway’s edge, lean over the head of my bed when my sleep was fitful after my dear one’s burial and I was ruing the cold realm of my bed. Her hair was as when she was borne to the pyre, the same look in her eyes: her dress was fused onto her side, on her finger the fire had bitten into the beryl ring she always wore, and the damp of the world beyond had just touched the edge of her lips. Her voice, and her temper, were the same as when she was alive, and her fragile hands rattled as she gave a flick of her thumbs: “You’re a traitor to me, and you’d be no better to any girl! Can sleep have power over you at a time like this? Have you forgotten already what we got up to in the small hours at the Subura, how my window-sill was worn away with your tricks at night, all those times I let down a rope from it and came down hand over hand to embrace you? How often we coupled at the crossroads, breast crushed against breast, and our bouts took the chill off the street! But, alas, the lying words of the tacit oath between us were blown away by winds that were never going to heed them. No-one called to me to stay as the life faded from my eyes – I could have managed one more day, if you had called me back – there was no watchman shaking his split-cane rattle for me – and the broken tile my head was plonked onto was cutting into it. And who saw you stoop in grief at the service, or wearing mourning that you’d warmed with your tears? Even if you couldn’t be bothered to go further than the gates, you could at least have had them carry my bier there more slowly. You bastard, why weren’t you there yourself to summon the winds for my pyre? Why weren’t my flames perfumed with nard? Was it too much even to strew cheap irises on me, or break a wine-jar to hallow my ashes? That house-slave Lygdamus, burn him, get the hot plates glowing for him! I realised straight away when he’d tricked me into drinking wine that was pale with poison. And Nomas – even if she is crafty enough to get rid of her secret potions, the red-hot plate will reveal that she has guilt on her hands. As for that woman, who not so long ago was on public show as a whore, and a cheap one too, now she’s tracing the ground with the gilded edge of her fancy gown, and weighs out unfair amounts of wool to spin for any of the women who have said too much and talked about my beauty, and because old Petale took flowers to my grave she finds herself shackled to an enormous ball and chain, and Lalage is hung up by her plaited hair and flogged because she asked for something in my name! You even put up with it when she melted down the gold of my image, so she could draw a dowry out of my own pyre! But I won’t pursue you further, Propertius, however much you may deserve it: my reign in your works was a long one. I swear by the song of the fates, which can be unsung for no man, and so may three-bodied Cerberus bark gently at me, that I kept faithful. If I am lying to you, may a viper hiss in my grave and squat on my bones. Because there are two homes that may fall to one’s lot over the grim river, and the throng all row their different ways on the water. One current carries Clytemnestra the adulteress, and bears Cretan Pasiphae’s wooden horror, that counterfeit heifer. But see, there is another group, disembarked from vessels which are crowned with garlands, where the blessed breeze of Elysium caresses the roses, where there are tuneful strings, and Lydian plectra playing among the turbaned dancers and making Cybele’s rounded cymbals sing. Andromeda and Hypermnestra, those virtuous wives, tell of the dangers for which they were famed in legend: Andromeda complains that her arms were livid with chains she bore on her mother’s account, and that, through no fault of hers, her arms and hands were like freezing stone; Hypermnestra tells how her sisters came to dare the enormity they did, and how in her own mind she could not bring herself to commit the crime. So with the tears of death we sanctify our earthly loves; I keep my counsel about many of the charges to which your treachery lays you open. But now we urge you, if perhaps you can be moved, if Chloris’s spells have not taken you in completely: let my nurse, Parthenie, not want for anything in the years of her infirmity: she was not unkind to you, although she could have been. And may my darling Latris, “handmaid” by name and by nature, not have to hold up the mirror to the new mistress. And whatever verses you made in my name – burn them all for me: do not cling to praise that you won through me. Plant ivy on my tomb, that will bind my fragile bones in its twisting tendrils with their swelling berries. Where the fruitful river Anio lies on the wooded fields, and ivory, by the grace of Hercules, never loses its brightness, there, in the centre of a column, put an epitaph which is worthy of me, but short enough for a traveller from the city to read as he hurries by: “Here in the earth of Tibur lies golden Cynthia, an embellishment, Anienus, to the renown of your banks”. And don’t ignore dreams that come to you through the gates of virtue: when those virtuous dreams arrive, they carry weight. At night, we shades are carried on our wanderings, the night frees us from captivity and, the bolt thrown back, Cerberus himself wanders abroad. With the daylight, the laws say we must return to the pools of Lethe: we are on board, and Chiron the mariner keeps count of the load he carries. Other women may possess you now: soon I alone will have you: you will be with me, and mine shall rub against yours in the mingling of our bones.” When she had finished her accusations and complaining, her shade passed beyond the reach of my embrace.
