Andrew S. Is Wrong
 

Anyone who thinks Ovid is a better Elegaic poet than Propertius is a confirmed snuffleupagus!

This is my favorite thread title in some time.

John

Ha! If I am wrong, let me be wrong with the Shakespeares, the Marlowes, the Miltons, the Alighieris and the Pushkins.

Let me be wrong, if these be the ranks of the wrong.

Don't try to throw sand into my eyes! Those luminaries love Ovid's hexameters--the "Metamorphoses"--not his elegaics (which are not as good as Propertius').

Marlowe translated the Amores; the Monobilbios, not so much.
Pushkin the exile turned to the Tristia.
Shakespeare knew and used the Ars Amatoria.
Milton's youthful elegies owe their debt to the Amores.

(You got me
on Dante.)

Well, influence, schminfluence. We aren't talking about which poet is more influential. We are talking about which poet wrote better elegaics--that is, we are talking about propertius!!!!!

Ah, but we disagree there. Ovid is better. Not just better, but the master of the elegiac couplet.

It seems reasonable in a matter of taste to turn to precedent: who did better poets and readers than you or I most cherish? When they turned to users of the elegiac couplets, which of the four classical models did they look to? Catullus? Tibullus? Propertius? Ovid?

Naso wins. He wins because it is more fluid in the couplet, snaps the trap shut best, if you will, and speaks with more facility and on a greater range of topics in the form.

Long live Naso, the poor exile.

Ovid is more influential because he is easier. Those of us with better Latin, with more discerning, with--dare I say?--better taste recognize that Propertius' Elegies beat Ovid's in every category.

Here is a little equation entitled "Andrew S. is wrong":

Passion + Craft = Sublimity.

Wit + Craft = Cleverness.

Sublimity > Cleverness

Oh! You just got burned, dude!

A friend of mine argued in his Ph.D. thesis that Ovid may never have left Rome. He may have made the exile up:

Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry - Gareth D. Williams ...
https://books.google.com › History › Ancient › General

Cheers,
John

Qualis Thesea iacuit cedente carina
languida desertis Cnosia litoribus;
qualis et accubuit primo Cepheia somno
libera iam duris cotibus Andromede;
nec minus assiduis Edonis fessa choreis
qualis in herboso concidit Apidano:
talis visa mihi mollem spirare quietem
Cynthia non certis nixa caput manibus,
ebria cum multo traherem vestigia Baccho. . .

As Cnossian Ariadne lay languid on lonely shores
when Theseus’ ship was sailing away,
as Cepheus' daughter Andromeda lapsed into her first sleep
since she was freed from the hard stone,
even as the Edonian Bacchante lay, when she fell,
exhausted by dancing, on grassy Apidanus,
so Cynthia seemed to sleep, breathing gentle quiet,
supporting her head with slipping hands,
when I dragged in feet drunk with much Bacchus. . .

. . . . .

Victoria est mea, Hui!

Harvard professor, Richard Thomas uses this theory rather well in his recent book, Why Dylan Matters, where he shows that Dylan's album, Modern Times, is riddled with allusions to Ovid. Tricksters both.

I do like Ovid. I teach Classical Studies in Denmark, and I am very lucky to have the superb modern translation of Metamorphoses by Otto Steen Due in accessible yet poetical hexameter.

Duncan

Hmm. I have the Rolfe Humphries rendering, which didn't really sing for me. I checked on Amazon and they don't know the Otto Steen Due.
Nice to know the "never left Rome" thesis has got some traction.

Cheers,
John

Well, it is in Danish, which is not yet Amazon"s domain.

:-)
My Danish is pretty limited: tryk and traek.
I found a monograph of his on Ovid there though.

Cheers,
John

Ah, yes, notable dunces all, whose simplicity led to such uncomplicated outpourings of verse. I also forgot that greater difficulty means something is better. Let's try out this Poochigian logic: Pounds Cantos are harder than Shakespeare: ergo, Pound is greater than Shakespeare!

Passion, shmassion. It's a phony put-on that Ovid saw right through. Propertius' passion poems border on maudlin; then poor sap died just when he started to push off in new directions.

Ovid has emotions; Ovid has insight; he lacks this "passion" that I'd suggest all poetry necessarily lacks in an authentic way.

Ovid beats Propertius in my eyes because he looks at the world as it is, and toys with it. Give me that poetry every day. And judge him--and my position--by the company he keeps, simpletons though we are.

Oh, if only Shakespeare had known Propertius as well as Ovid!

I understand your position--some people just prefer superficial poetry to poetry with depth.

It's true! Me, Dorus, and Milton, with our forced fingers rude, will enjoy the simple, country pleasures of Ovid. Shakespeare will be late, but tip a rustic ale. You, Ezra, and whoever else can have your fancy feasts and enjoy the depths of Propertius. They'll be berets, and everyone will pretend that there's something authentic about the whole ordeal. It will be good wine, I think, and I'll miss out.

Most entertaining controversy I ever read.

Andrew, I'm disappointed--you can't get past your failed "influence" argument (which has more to do with chance manuscript history than anything else) and say why Ovid's elegaics are better than Propertius' (they ain't).

Not to make a claim as to my personal preference, but this is from the blurb for CUP's Ovid in the Middle Ages: "Ovid is perhaps the most important surviving Latin poet and his work has influenced writers throughout the world. [...] It elaborates the scale and scope of the enthusiasm for Ovid in medieval Europe, following readers of the canon from the Carolingian monasteries to the early schools of the Île de France and on into clerical and curial milieux in Italy, Spain, the British Isles and even the Byzantine Empire."
Here's hoping the volume goes some way to accounting for why Ovid remained a Europe-wide phenomenon across the span of several medieval centuries. I think it goes beyond the chances of manuscript transmission - indeed, it helps to account for that - though argument is always fun, and it's true, the period had some odd preferences.
I could do with looking at both more closely in Latin. I enjoyed the Latin Amores in high school, the Humphries Metamorphoses I find a bit prosy. Propertius - hmm. Catullus has passion. Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire, et quod vides perisse perditum ducas. And for music, I like Virgil and Horace. My Greek is too poor now to hear the Greeks.
Maybe one day I'll work on my Classics again.

Cheers,
John

I find the "passion = better" argument silly, myself.

I'm also an amateur classicist arguing with a Ph.D. The fundamental weakness I have in the argument is one of "appeal to authority": you know the Latin deeper than I do. I think Ovid's couplets are better, but that will always carry a little less weight than you think Propertius' are. There's obviously more to Ovid's importance than the weight of the manuscript tradition, though his frequency in the manuscript tradition owes to his greater popularity, particularly among the educated class.

Some moments I quite enjoy (and I apologize that they are untranslated--I had to find them in my notes and then cut and paste them from Perseus.

Si tibi non opus est servata, stulte, puella,
.....At mihi fac serves, quo magis ipse velim!
Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet acrius urit.
.....Ferreus est, siquis, quod sinit alter, amat
Speremus pariter, pariter metuamus amantes,
.....Et faciat voto rara repulsa locum.
Quo mihi fortunam, quae numquam fallere curet?
.....Nil ego, quod nullo tempore laedat, amo!
*
Sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum,
.....Et videor voti nescius esse mei.

Or, the attitude that I admire a great deal, from Ars Amatoria:

Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit, esse putemus;
.....Dentur in antiquos tura merumque focos;
Nec secura quies illos similisque sopori
.....Detinet; innocue vivite: numen adest;
Reddite depositum; pietas sua foedera servet:
.....Fraus absit; vacuas caedis habete manus.

and:

Est deus in nobis, et sunt commercia caeli:
.....Sedibus aetheriis spiritus ille venit.

Or:

Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus
.....Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit.

Please, people! We're all friends here. Can't we just agree that they're both incredibly boring in their own way?

BORING!?!?

O Miser Szilvase

What? I said something wrong?

Andrew,

I feel I hardly need to respond at this point, since I have so thoroughly established that Propertius’ Elegies contain more passion, subtlety and depth than Ovid’s. All the same, though I hesitate to kick a man when he is down, here goes:

As for your first excerpt,

we must agree with what Dr. Papanghelis says, “We should beware of foisting on Propertius the donjuanesque cynicism which Ovid often flaunts in glamorizing urbane adultery.” (Propertius: A Hellenstic Poet on Love and Death, 172)

Far more emotionally resonant is Propertius' assumption of the role of the man cheated on, as when he says to Cynthia:

hos tu iurabas, si quid mentita fuisses,
ut tibi suppositis exciderent manibus:
et contra magnum potes hos attollere Solem,
nec tremis admissae conscia nequitiae?
quis te cogebat multos pallere colores
et fletum invitis ducere luminibus?
quis ego nunc pereo, similis moniturus amantis
‘O nullis tutum credere blanditiis!’

You swore by your eyes, if you’d been false in any way,
they’d vanish away when your fingers touched them.
And can you raise them to the vast sun, and not tremble,
aware of your heinous sins? Who forced your pallor
of shifting complexion, and drew tears from your unwilling eyes?
By those eyes I now am dying, like a man meant to warn other lovers:
‘No charms can ever be safely trusted!’

By those eyes I now am dying!—Come on! That’s great.

As for your second excerpt,

“Sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum”

“Thus I cannot live with you or without you.”

It is obvious that Ovid PLAGIARIZED that line from U2’s hit song from the 80’s “With Or Without You.”

Your other excerpts are beneath comment.

Roger, we haven't disagreed in almost 200 minutes.

Dr. Edwin Boring (for whom two of the Dire Straits are named) stipulates that Propertius is a Sultana Grape going raisin with love compared to Ovid's pressure-cooked John Updike.

Aaron's [Evángelos Odysséas] Papa[thanass/iou]vangelis, K. T. L., just says "Molon laby, baby", that is, "You want some more Yanni, please, take him, take him away. Please!!"

Propertius, Ok, ok... Like the curate's egg, and Catullus too, but parts are excellent, like Catullus too.

Haec est questio quaerire et respondire: qui poetarum carmina meliora, poeses cum arte maiora, scripsit. Ars poesis--musica orationum, modus et metrum, pulsus versuum, et significatio verborum--est Ovidio. Si novitates stigma magnorum poetarum sunt, Propertius est maior. Sed ars non videtur in rebus novis, quae sunt similes umbris aut fumis--eae ibi sunt, et diffugiunt. Ars vera in bona et prudenti re tradita vivit. Credo, ergo, ut Ovidius esse et poeta maior et artifex maior. Et tempus est testis ad haec veritatem.

Ignoscete meae Latinae inconncinnae. Ea est robiginosa. Et ab hoc fatuus revelabitur.

Patricius

Dear Mr. Murtha, thank you for your noble attempt to express yourself in Latin.

Petronius:

Lecto compositus vix prima silentia noctis
carpebam et somno lumina victa dabam,
cum me savus Amor prensat sursumque capillis
excitat et lacerum pervigilare iubet.
“Tu famulus meus,” inquit, “ames cum mille puellas,
solus, io, solus, dure, iacere potes?”
Exsilio et pedibus nudis tunicaque soluta
omne iter ingredior, nullum iter expedio.
Nunc propero, nunc ire piget, rursumque redire
paenitet, et pudor est stare via media.
Ecce tacent voces hominum strepitusque viarum
et volucrum cantus fidaque turba canum;
solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque,
et sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum.

Pooch keeps believing passion equates to skill.

SAD!

Oh no, you have retreated into Trump tweets.

Declaring victory merely by dictate? I thought I was just playing along. :)

Andrew, I've been told that it helps to understand that Aaron may be a member of an early Gnocchi sect, and therefore one of the benevolent 8,000 lb. puppy giants found among them. My information could be wrong, however. This is merest hearsay.

Ah, the Gnocchi. I've not seen hide nor hair of them since my days in Italy. They are easily underestimated.

John

They're heretics.

They're also delicious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnocchi

And they're also a South American slang term for "impostors":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnocchi#South_America

John, I think that is not quite his entire thought, which is indeed gnarly. On the other hand, the proof of Ovid's absence from Rome is easy. He says so. If you want to believe that Williams believes deep in his witty soul that Ovid was holed up in a gilded cage on the Palatine, I have more to believe:

(a) that the world is flat;
(b) that the value of Pi is precisely 3.00000000...., and not one drop more;
and (c) that the Piltdown Man's full name was Bob Bob Bob: (Bob -- son of Bob and Babs (daughter of Bess), the son of Bob (son of Bobalulu) and Babe (daughter of Barby, who was born Cecelia but shortened her name).

The argument that Ovid never left Rome is an awesomely cute chimera that rests entirely on the lack of mention of such an exile by later writers, who, if they had enough smarts, would have said to each other in voiceless rustles: "whisper, whisper... Mehercule, we don't want to remind the powers that be about Ovid's banishment, because, umm, maybe it could happen to us too if we say something inept, I mean, umm, look who's in power, or might be ... whisper, whisper."

Alex Pope said "Nothing smarts so little as a fool."

Unfortunately, the copyright page of my copy of Wiliiams' dissertation makes no reference to Alexander Pope.

The argument is a little broader and more interesting than that: as I recall, it's evidence that everything Ovid notes about the Black Sea was available to him in Rome and didn't require exile to discover. But as to a summary of Gareth's thinking as a Ph.D. student, you'd just have to ask Gareth.

Cheers,
John

I wouldn't want to tempt him into a statement that he would be duty bound to defend. Ovid's writing about his transmigration to Tomis uses every cliche available to establish rapport with his readers. Shameless appropriation from anything going. Exaggeration. All marketing. Anything to fill column inches on the papyrus. The dissertation is an interesting read; ask the man who owns one.